Ecclesiastes 1: Seek Trust
Second Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2024
Vanity
This book was written not by Solomon as claimed, but by a writer who actually identifies himself “as a subject (4:13, 8:2, 9:14-16, 10:16-17 and 20), noting conditions of oppression (4:13), injustice (4:8, 5:8), and social upheaval (10:6-7). The language . . . is a late form of biblical Hebrew, coming closest of any Old Testament book to post-biblical Mishnaic Hebrew. The presence of Persian loan-words requires a date well after Israel’s release from exile in 539 B.C.E. Fragments of the book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Qumran community date to the mid-second century B.C.E. Most scholars date the book’s composition between 300 and 200 B.C.E.” (Meeks 986) The Mishnah is a collection of oral literature of the early Hebrew people who appear to us as the first portion of the Torah.
We find the theme of this book laid out clearly in the first chapter: All is vanity that does not come from God. It does not take any time at all for us to put this reading into the context of our own lives. What does take some time is to determine what to do with this self-knowledge.
We have entered the season of Advent – an exciting, mysterious time in the liturgical calendar that we associate with a feeling of expectation – a time of promises and fulfillment. We in the northern hemisphere also associate this time of year with the coming on of darkness and cold; while in the southern hemisphere, Advent is experienced as a time of lengthening days and rising temperatures. I often think that the later is more apt. Warmth, light, ease of days, promise . . . Christ. The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that all else besides a life that acts in this promise is futile. As followers of Christ, our example of living in hope is paramount for ourselves, for our community, and for the greater world. We enact Christ when we put aside the vanity that we are all, and take on the understanding that The Promise is all.
As we move through this day and begin this week after spending a day or days of Thanksgiving for the bounty of the earth, we will want to pause to examine our spiritual bounty as well. Just as we examine our relationships with family and friends, we will also want to examine our relationship with the Creator, the Redeemer and the Comforter. We will want to unfold the miracle of this love so great that it overcomes all trials and injustices. We will want to allow ourselves to step into that which is not in vain. We will want to remember, we will want to trust, we will want to believe, we will want to hope.
We already know that there is nothing new under the sun . . . and so what we hope to experience is that which is new . . . that which is not in vain . . . and that which is worthy of every ounce of strength we have in body, mind and soul.
Like the audience of Ecclesiastes, we who have returned from exile will want to reunite in intimacy with our God and so we might try to spend more time this season with this book of wisdom, parsing out its verses to complement our days. In this way, we might hope to be full of God’s wisdom rather than our own, we might hope to live in God’s love rather than our own, and we might hope to be Christ rather than an empty vanity of vanities.
To celebrate this Second Sunday of Advent, we join voices with this traditional hymn, O Come, O come, Emmanuel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xtpJ4Q_Q-4
Meeks, Wayne A., Gen. Ed. HARPERCOLLINS STUDY BIBLE (NRSV). New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989. Print.
A Favorite from November 30, 2009.
Image from: https://www.topofart.com/artists/Le-Sueur/art-reproduction/13366/Solomon-Before-the-Ark-of-the-Covenant.php
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