4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets;
it hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows southward,
then turns northward;
round and round it swirls,
ever returning on its course.
7 All the rivers flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full;
to the place from which the streams come,
there again they flow.

8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can describe;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear content with hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
and what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a case where one can say,
“Look, this is new”?
It has already existed
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance
of those who came before,
and those yet to come will not be remembered
by those who follow after.

REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead

This guy must have been fun to be around at parties, right? Not exactly a ray of sunshine. But sometimes we human beings need a healthy dose of cold, hard reality.

Today’s passage reminded me of a conversation I had years ago in Chile. I was doing walk-up evangelism, and I got talking to a guy who had a strange mix of Catholic and New Age religious beliefs. He told me that he believed in “spiritual evolution.” Just like species evolve biologically, he believed, over the centuries humanity has also evolved spiritually, so that each generation is spiritually superior to the one before. I said to him, “Let me ask you one question: When you look at relationships between people today – from personal conflicts and divorce rates, all the way up to international relations and wars between countries – do you think the human race is any better today than it was 2000 years ago?” He said, “No, I guess not.” There goes that theory.

The Teacher’s basic point in today’s passage is: No matter how hard we try, we never really make progress. Yes, we might make advances in technology, medicine, etc. But at a more fundamental level of why we exist and what makes us human, things never change. History keeps repeating itself over and over. There are cycles of greed, abuse and moral corruption that humanity has never broken (hello, Epstein Files!). There is “nothing new under the sun” (v 9).

Except … something new did happen, centuries after the Teacher wrote this, something colossal: the Son of God rose from the dead. And that means there is one genuinely new thing that can happen in a person’s life – something that, eventually, will break every cycle of evil and despair: You can be born again by the Holy Spirit, when you accept Jesus as your Lord.

Take time in prayer to appreciate how huge that new thing is; and pray that God would do a great new work of His Spirit in St Barnabas, in Sydney, and in the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our Senior Minister