Vapor

Our post today was written by Michael Smith, who delights in finding meaning in everything!

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…”  Ecclesiastes

3:1

Every other Thursday night, my wife and I meet with a small collective of families from our

church to have dinner, share stories, and ponder how to faithfully follow Jesus together.  Some

churches call these “small groups”, but we’ve adopted the term “gospel communities”: a nod to

the common hope that binds us together.  We join together regularly to remind and remember

that our hope is in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

In our first gathering for Fall, I asked everyone to share their favorite book of scripture.  There

were some usual suspects: John, Romans, James, Psalms.  A couple of folks said Isaiah (to

which I replied “the whole book?  Even chapters 13-39?” and my dear friend Wendy reminded

me there’s so much glory in the middle of Isaiah!).  But when my turn came, I shared that, at

least lately, my favorite has been Ecclesiastes.  

Now for those who have read Ecclesiastes, that may be a head-scratcher.  Is it a valid part of

scripture? Of course.  Inspired? Absolutely.  Rich with truth about God and man?  For sure.  

But favorite?

How can I say that about a book that opens with “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” (or in some

translations, “Utterly meaningless; everything is meaningless!”); a book that declares wisdom

and pleasure and riches and work are all vanity and striving after wind; a book that gives us such feel-good statements as 

“in much wisdom is much vexation, 

and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” (1:18)

“All are from the dust, and to dust all return.” (3:20)

“As [a man] came from his mother’s womb he shall go again, naked as he came, 

and shall take nothing for his toil that he may carry away in his hand.” (5:15)

“all [man’s] days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation” (2:23)

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  You can’t take it with you.  All your toil is vain and meaningless.And so it continues, all the way to the end.  

Seriously, go read the last three verses:  Even books and learning are a weariness.  So the best

I can tell you is fear God, keep his commandments, because he will judge everything.  (12:12-

14, my paraphrase)

Ecclesiastes is a difficult book because the tension doesn’t relent.  It reads in places like the

discard pile from Proverbs, the ones Solomon wrote on his bad days.  It’s a grim pondering of

the reality of our experience:  life is hard, and no matter what we do it can still feel

meaningless.  

Not exactly the stuff your grandmother would cross-stitch on a throw pillow.

Now that I’ve killed the vibe, maybe it’s time to ask: what does all of this have to do with our Fall

theme of being faithful in the seasons of life?

First, a clarification.  

At the heart of Ecclesiastes is the Hebrew word hevel.  It’s the word most often translated

“vanity”, and it appears 38 times (!) in 12 short chapters.  The book is a broken record of hevel,

and if you read it as “meaningless”, well, you can understand why it gives Ecclesiastes a

reputation as the Eeyore of the biblical canon.

But while hevel is often translated “vanity”, its literal meaning is “vapor” or “breath” - and

perhaps it’s less about the meaninglessness of everything, and more about the fleeting and

unreliable nature of it all.  Like seeing your breath on a cold day:  it’s there and it’s real, but you

can’t grab onto it, and it won’t be there long.

The point of Ecclesiastes is that everything in this life - all that you can make or control or

influence or achieve - is temporary; it’s a mist, a vapor.  We must approach it with humility.  And

we must recognize that God alone is the eternal, concrete, reliable source of life and joy and

peace.  

God has “put eternity in the heart of man”, and everything crumbles under the weight of our

eternal hopes.  Everything except God himself.

The book is a call to faithfulness in its most basic sense: not to trust in achievement or wisdom

or status or wealth (and not to despair in the lack of them), but to live by faith in every moment.

More than any other scripture, it tackles head-on the reality that life is a progression of seasons

- “to everything there is a season” (turn, turn, turn anyone?) - and our charge is to not cling to or

run from them - but to learn to find God’s steady presence in all of them.

Ecclesiastes is a call to be faithful in the seasons of life.

Fear God, keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. (12:13)

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in

all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given

him, for this is his lot. (5:18)

A few days after I told our group about my love for Ecclesiastes, I was listening to an episode of

“The Daily” about how AI is disrupting not just peoples’ jobs, but their sense of purpose.  They

interviewed a math professor from Cornell who described how AI is solving problems that have

stumped humans for decades - and how devastating that can be to mathematicians who have

built their lives around the work of solving these problems.  It’s an emotional and beautiful

interview, and it came with a twist I couldn’t have anticipated.

He shares that the Cornell math department had recently called a meeting to discuss the future

of the field, and a student raised the question “what’s the point?  If AI can do this faster and

better than we can, why continue pursuing math?”  

What’s the point?  It’s all vanity.

And to my utter surprise the professor shares, with tears, that wrestling with this question has

led him - you guessed it - to Ecclesiastes.  He speaks of it with reverence and awe, clearly

struck by the ancient wisdom and contemporary relevance.  And while he stops just short of

acknowledging the divine message in Ecclesiastes, when the interviewer asks him what he

would say to that student who voiced her dismay in the meeting, he says “I would ask her if she

wants to read this book.”

That podcast wrecked me.  I was driving to pick up my kids from school, trying to distract my

brain from the stress of work and all the looming deadlines and deliverables.  And I found myself

pulling into a Starbucks parking lot so I could cry.  

God was reaching out to me in that moment.  He was speaking with the voice of a non-religious

Ivy League math professor in a season of existential crisis, reminding me that my current

season of stressful work, important projects, packed schedules, pressure to succeed, fear of

failure, small victories, difficult defeats - they’re all a breath. A mist. A vapor.  And hanging my

hopes on them is vanity. 

But there is bedrock beneath the softest of soils, and God is present in every season. He is

calling me - calling us - to trust him, to listen to his voice, to find the joy of his presence even in

the toils of life. 

It’s not meaningless.  It’s short.  It’s fleeting.  But it’s not meaningless.