Solomon closes Ecclesiastes 11 with an appeal for young people to look around and enjoy the things they see but to remember actions have consequences – judgment will come. Chapter 12 is a poetic description of getting old. It really isn’t a pretty picture despite the flowery language. He speaks of silver cords being severed and golden pitchers breaking. He is talking about death. He then says in verse 8, “Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the teacher. “Everything is meaningless!” He sounds like the passage I read yesterday from Macbeth. Neither of them had much hope nor satisfaction. The problem was they didn’t know Jesus and the joy of salvation.
To know Jesus changes everything. To know Jesus is to understand all these years on Earth are prelude. The real life, the eternal life, the never-ending growing life has begun now but the best is yet to come. “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” Solomon did not have the Gospel of John to savor. Shakespeare’s fictional Macbeth obviously never read it. If all we had was John we have more than enough to fill our lives with joy. How grand that we have even more than John. The riches of the other Gospels and the letters of Paul chase away the despair of our human walk and fill us with a knowledge that surpasses anything Solomon ever dreamed.
Of all people who ever walked this earth we are the most blessed.
Written by Roger Bothwell on January 29, 2013
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org