Beautiful and Baffling: Ecclesiastes 3:1-12

Michel Onfray is a French philosopher and atheist. In his Atheist Manifesto he writes: “By aiming for paradise, we lose sight of earth. Hope of a beyond and aspiration to an afterlife engender a sense of futility in the present. If the prospect of getting taken up to paradise generates joy, it is the mindless joy of a baby picked up from his crib.”

There is no doubt that aspiration for eternity creates futility in the present (though I beg to differ that a baby’s joy is mindless when picked up from the crib). We long for perfection but cannot attain it. What heaven is supposed to be seems unattainable here, hard as we try to bring it to earth. But for the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, yearning for perfection is a crucial key to understanding life as God has made it.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, ESV)

A key theme of wisdom seekers is doing things in the right time. For example, in Proverbs 26:4-5 we see two seemingly contradictory pieces of advice, but in reality they are suggesting that timing or appropriateness for the situation is in the hands of the wise person:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. (ESV)

The wise man or woman knows that a case can be made for each of what these pairs offers, though they seem opposed. But the Preacher is thinking of this aspect of wisdom in a different way. Does knowing the appropriate or beautiful time for everything gain one the ability to guarantee a positive future? The answer is a resounding NO!

The key question is, “What gain has the worker from his toil,” and the answer is he may have no gain at all.  God’s plan for the world includes beautiful and ugly alike.  We have eternity in our hearts and so we are made for the perfection of heaven, but we cannot figure out how to make heaven a reality in this life.  Today laughter, tomorrow weeping.  We cannot figure out the end from the beginning.  To put it the way Kelli Jae Baeli did in Crossing Paths, “You can bail water 24/7, and no matter how good you are at not sinking, you still have a hole in your boat.”  God is going to do what God is going to do.

The best we can do is find joy in our work and do good, do God’s commands, and enjoy the gifts of joy God gives us along the way.  We cannot figure out how to prolong these joys or prevent the sorrows.  As the apostle Paul said, “God subjected the world to futility,” (Romans 8:20).  And it is okay if we ask why.  Though the Preacher doesn’t directly ask this question or answer it, his very search explains it.  He would do anything to have the control of a guarantee of a prosperous future.  And that would include neglecting his Creator.  Like Adam and Eve, he would gladly be his own God, knowing good and evil.  Why would he look to God when life had all he needed?