The Preacher's View of Life

The book of Ecclesiastes is sometimes known as "the Preacher."  Ecclesiastes certainly seems in some verses to look at life as it stands without grace or salvation.  Ecclesiastes looks at the measure of man by himself and finds it wanting; finds it utterly lacking.

"Therefore I hated life;" (Ecclesiastes 2:17)

Here we see articulated the points of view of the stoics and perhaps even the nihilists and existentialists.  The Preacher warns future generations about this, saying, "...there is no new thing under the sun."  Ecclesiastes may in part make the case for despair and for giving up, but the book is also immensely practical and worldly wise - it recognizes that there is a "time" for everything.

This is an important book to read if you think that humanity is on some kind of march of continual improvement, some long-term plan of greater and greater enlightenment, some kind of progress program. The Preacher has seen all of this before.  It is not new.

Man's help is not man.

But we know that this is not the end of the story.

As an antidote and a comfort, remember the words read at Evening Prayer:

"See him that made the Pleiades and Orion, that turneth deep darkness into the morning, and darkeneth the day into night, that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his Name." (Amos 5:8)

and

"If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night," darkness is not dark to thee, O LOrd; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to thee are both alike." (Psalm 139:10,11)

(Image of Ecclesiastes from Wikimedia Commons)