Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-163 (Sermon)

SO, WHAT’S LIFE ALL ABOUT? Scripture: Ecclesiastes 9:1-12

by Don McLellan

Have you ever read a more depressing passage from the Bible than this one? There may be others just as depressing, but nearly all of them are in this strange little book called Ecclesiastes. Readers may wonder how on earth it got into the canon of Scripture. It seems so negative. Many have attempted to summarise its theme, and I have read all sorts of proposals, but the common thread in all of them is this: You’re gonna die! You’re gonna die! You’re gonna die!

Some people wonder why this book is in the canon. It is in the earliest lists of Jewish sacred scriptures that we know about, so it is not a Johnny-come-lately. Jewish people make a point of reading from it every year as they celebrate the Feast of Booths. I think it is in the canon because God’s people, both Christians and Jews, must be realistic about life and its inevitable end. From the Christian point of view it may also be in the canon to provide us with a contrast: to remind us of how very different Christian thought is when it comes to the subject of death and the meaning of life.

For the Christian there is much more meaning to life and to death than what Ecclesiastes portrays. This writer, who calls himself in Hebrew Qoheleth (translated “teacher” or “preacher” in Eccles 1:1), is so much like many people today. He does not have a fully rounded view of life and death. He is buried in half-baked ideas which make him cynical. He has a belief in God and a respect for him, but his life has more questions than it has answers. Life for him is empty and meaningless. His God is the god of deism: remote, unmovable, indifferent to his prayers, certainly not interested in the struggles he endures on this mortal coil.

Qoheleth has very little concept of heaven or any kind of afterlife. There is not a great deal of difference between the end of a good person and that of a bad person. “As it is with the good man, so with the sinner.” (9:2). And Qoheleth thinks this is evil: “This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all” (9:3). So, he says, no matter how insignificant or ordinary your life, it is better to be alive. While you are alive you have at least some hope of something good, but you have no such hope if you are dead. “Even a living dog is better than a dead lion” (9:4).

Depressing, isn’t it? And absolutely true if the New Testament is wrong about God.

I wonder if there is anyone here today who sees life like this? Do you only believe that God should be respected, and that you should live a decent life with a modicum of enjoyment? At the same time, do you believe that God has put you on the earth to live a meaningless life? Qoheleth is right – but only partly right. Let’s look at how he is partly right, and see how we can supplement his beliefs from the NT to make it not only fully right, but a whole lot more positive. Let’s see how Qoheleth’s meaningless life is the bang opposite of Paul’s meaningful life, and let’s see how we can make life both meaningful and happy.

1. Qoheleth is right: God must be respected.

When we preach the Gospel, we often correctly emphasise its benefits. The Gospel has a whole lot of spin-offs if we believe it: forgiveness of sins, meaning and purpose in this life, and heaven in the next to name a few. But fundamentally the point of the Gospel is to give God back his proper place in our lives. There is a Creator. It is exceptionally hard to believe anything else. And if God had not done anything else – even if he were merely the remote and indifferent god of deism – he ought to be worshipped for his creation alone.

But our God is much more than that. Our God loves us with an everlasting love. Our God is a being who commands us to love him with all our hearts, souls, and strength. He is not a distant God. He is not an indifferent God. We are fully in his heart all the time.

Some time ago I attended an excellent seminar on worship. However, during the seminar, the leader made this assertion: “The way to the heart of God is through worship.” In one sense she is quite right. Worship is more than a mere exercise in acknowledging the greatness of God, more than an exercise in objectivity. Worship is meant to encourage us to feel the presence of God, and to rekindle our love for him. But there is a dangerous heresy lurking in the idea that the way to the heart of God is through worship. It is the danger of thinking that God’s interest in us can only be aroused through worship. That is absolutely incorrect. Over and over again the God of the Bible tells us of his unconditional love – from the provision of garments for the rebellious Adam and Eve to the Saviour dying on the cross. Recently I read through the prophet Hosea, that tragic story of a man whose wife would not remain faithful to him, and marvelled again at the God who keeps loving no matter what.

Qoheleth does not seem to have such a picture of God. I am reminded of a young man I knew some time ago who had an enormous compulsion to try to get close to God. He would spend hours daily in his devotions; he fasted to the point of anorexia; he prayed long and loud and agonised prayers to God. He was desperate. And it all changed when he learnt that God was not like his own father had been, distant and unmoved and uncaring. He suddenly discovered the grace and the love of God, and his life changed dramatically. He began to enjoy God, and enjoy being a Christian.

Qoheleth his right. God is to be respected – not because he can snuff us out at any time, but because he created us and because he loves us, unconditionally. God is not distant. You can know him personally and intimately, through faith in Jesus Christ.

2. Qoheleth is right: death awaits us all.

It is unbecoming for Christians to live in denial of death. It is unhealthy to hope for what we might not get. Christians afraid of death may become susceptible to Second Coming “experts.” Some of these “experts” have made millions out of speculative books and novels describing how they think the world will end, complete with a painless and very convenient escape from death for Christians which they call “the Rapture.” I will not discuss here whether their theology is right or wrong, although please be aware that you can be a Christian who respects the Bible and have a different point of view. I suspect that a significant proportion of their readership consists of people who suffer from what psychologists call “death denial”. Spiritually healthy Christians do not deny the inevitability of death – it has happened to more than 500 generations of Christians since the Resurrection. Most of us here, if not all of us, will experience death. There is no compelling reason to say otherwise. Some of us will experience it sooner than others.

We are all probably going to die – and I hesitate even to use the word “probably” in case someone wants to cling to a hope that I saying there will be no Rapture, but if the Rapture is true, it only applies to one generation. Who says it is this one? Only people whose hope is misplaced: their hope is in an event that not every Bible scholar believes will happen, rather than in a Person, Jesus Christ our Lord.

However, Qoheleth’s hope was not in the right things either. “Everyone who is among the living has hope,” says Qoheleth; but his hope is cynical. He wants simply to stay alive a little longer to enjoy what few pleasures human beings can properly enjoy. With heavy irony he says, “Even a live dog is better than a dead lion” (9:4). This is completely different to the hope of the NT. Christian hope is not negative, but positive. Listen to Paul in Romans 5:1-5:

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Yes, better to be a living dog than a dead lion, but better still to be a Christian who believes the promises of God that death is not the end. There is a future, and in the meantime life is meant to be lived!

3. Qoheleth is right: life is to be enjoyed.

“Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favours what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun– all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labour under the sun” (9:7-9).

Don’t you feel for this sad man? It is dreadful to see people trying to enjoy life with Qoheleth’s negative outlook. He calls life “meaningless” (9:9) and in effect says you might as well enjoy it because the outlook is pretty grim.

Twenty-five years after we graduated, my high school class had its one and only reunion. It was a wonderful night, but so incredibly instructive to see what my old classmates had made of life. There was Roman, who had risen to the rank of chief beer taster for the local brewery, and who consumed vast quantities of his company product during the night. When we sang the school song, he was always half a stanza behind the rest of us. There was Warwick who had risen to the rank of Ambassador in the Australian diplomatic corps – we were not surprised at that, though I think we had expected him to become a politician. He always had the ability to say with great sincerity things that he didn’t really mean.

There was Garth, who used to wag school when the waves were good at Noosa, and who had become the owner of a deep sea diving company contracted to the oil wells off the NW coast of Australia. And there was Wayne, who supplied the gathering with 72 bottles of Dom Perignon champagne at $85 per bottle – and there were only 70 at the party! Wayne had become a Real Estate agent on the Gold Coast, and wanted us to know that he was making serious money. Fascinating to see how these people set about to enjoy the party.

But also in that gathering there were the people whom the rest couldn’t comprehend. There was Bev, who had a genius IQ but who had “wasted” her life as a deaconess in the Methodist and later Uniting Church; there was Dianne who had “wasted” her life translating the Bible for Aboriginal people in East Arnhem Land; and there was little old me, who had “wasted” my life in the pastoral ministry. We three were among the few who could remember the party the next day.

When it came time to stand up and say who we were and what we had been up to, there were gasps of admiration and big applause for those who had “made it” by the world’s standards, and polite sporadic applause for those of us who had “wasted” our lives. But I will never forget what Wayne the wealthy one said, to enthusiastic applause: “You only get one chance at life. You might as well enjoy it.” Straight out of Ecclesiastes! And so tragically short changed. Compare this with Paul, in Phil 1:21-26:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.”

Life has no meaning when you live it for yourself. Those who get wasted are the ones wasting their lives. When Christ is at the centre of your life, there is meaning, there is enjoyment, there is hope, and there is love. Qoheleth was right, but only partly right.

Don’t be only partly right. Life can be meaningful. Death is not the stone end. Trust in Jesus Christ, and live!

– Don McLellan <>

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) (c) 1978 by International Bible Society.