Easter in a time of confusion
Easter happens in the reality of Ecclesiastes and speaks to the vanity of the world.
“Vanity” means pride and arrogance, bedroom furniture or the lyrics: “You’re so vain. You probably think this song is about you.” Ecclesiastes sings this song, too, except it sings it about us: “Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity.” At least, that was the old translation.
The NIV changed the translation to “meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.” Is it? Is this really what Ecclesiastes is saying?
The Hebrew word is hebel: breath, vapour or fog. The writer uses this word – sounds this note – thirty-seven times, the Hebrew numerical value of hebel. The image produced is that everything is beyond our ability to grasp, to fully understand. As the writer says nine times, it is “a chasing after the wind.” It is not “meaningless.” It is that we cannot figure things out, and it is arrogant to think we can.
Messed up world
This world is confusing and confounds us. We want certainty. We want to be right in our daily decisions, in our family rules, in our moral principles, in our politics and, especially, in our faith. A broken, fallen world does not work that way.
Ecclesiastes leads us on a journey to knock down certain idols. The opening poem (Ecc. 1:3-11) questions whether what we do makes any difference. Been there. Done that. Well, then, study hard and learn more. Except “the more knowledge, the more grief” (1:18). So turn off the news, have fun, make money. Pleasure is a good thing, but it is not enough, and it never lasts (Ecc. 2).
The Byrds paraphrased Ecclesiastes in “Turn, Turn, Turn” in 1965: “There is a season to every purpose under heaven.” There is structure and order (Ecc. 3), but we do not know the times.
The world is messed up. It is not fair. Look at all the evil and oppression (Ecc. 4). “Think of all the lonely people,” The Beatles sang in “Eleanor Rigby.” Leaders are foolish, arrogant, senile or inexperienced (make your own application). Accept God’s gifts, but money will never satisfy (Ecc. 5-6 and “Mo Money, Mo Problems” by The Notorious B.I.G., 1997).
The monkey wrench in life is death. “This too is a grievous evil: As everyone comes, so they depart, and what do they gain, since they toil for the wind?” (5:15-16)
One certainty
Easter, too, is confusing. There are things about how Jesus rose from the dead and what his resurrection body was like that we do not understand.
The resurrection gives us one certainty amidst the confusion. That Jesus arose and conquered death for us is foundational for our lives now and forever. Paul celebrates, “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:57-58)
Life is still confusing. Easter invites us to a meaningful life with the certainty of resurrection.
