October 27th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

Yesterday I introduced a topic that we’ll be looking at for a while together – how do we construct a theological framework which helps us to make sense of pain and loss? This is no easy task. I surely am not thinking that we are going to settle this in everyone’s minds forever – but I do believe that as we open the Word of God with an open heart, we get a glimpse of the bigger picture.

To begin our dig into Scripture, let’s crack open the book of Ecclesiastes together. Often avoided, this book has become one of my favorites. I can’t wait to look at it with you!

Back when I was a tenth grader at a Christian school, we often liked to joke with our geometry teacher (who was also our Bible teacher) and write Ecclesiastes 1:2 on our test papers.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

Doesn’t that verse just fill you with hope? :)

I think that much of the confusion regarding the book of Ecclesiastes stems from the way the NIV has translated this word. “Meaningless” is really a very insufficient term. The KJV, NKJV, ESV, and NASB (maybe others – I haven’t checked them all!) all translate this term as vanity – “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

This begs the question – what is vanity?

John MacArthur summarizes that there are three basic ways that the term “vanity” is used in the book of Ecclesiastes. It refers to:
• Transience – the vapor-like nature of life
• Futility – focuses on the cursed condition of the earth and its effects on our lives
• Incomprehensibility – life’s unanswerable questions and the mystery of God’s purposes

In other words: vanity refers to futility, frustration, limitation, and ultimately death which every person experiences as a result of living in a sin-cursed world.

Right there, I want to yell this out with Solomon. He wrestled with pain and loss and death and frustration just like we do. I think he was angry about death – it wasn’t supposed to be this way, and it stinks! I think he was frustrated by the brokenness of living life as sinful people in a cursed world, where righteousness and wickedness did not always seem to be getting appropriate consequences. And I think he, like the rest of us, recognized that there is much which is simply incomprehensible – God’s ways are not our ways.

Solomon’s book echoes the thought of my heart recently – life is hard. God is good, but life is still hard.

Hard, but not meaningless.

To be continued…

All the posts for this series are indexed here.