12 Then I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what more can the king’s successor do than what has already been accomplished? 13 And I saw that wisdom exceeds folly, just as light exceeds darkness:

14 The wise man has eyes in his head,
but the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I also came to realize that one fate overcomes them both.15 So I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will also befall me. What then have I gained by being wise?”

And I said to myself that this too is futile.

16 For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, just as with the fool, seeing that both will be forgotten in the days to come. Alas, the wise man will die just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead

In the first devotion, I said that both Job and Ecclesiastes are balancing the perspective of the book of Proverbs. Proverbs describes the usual pattern of life in God’s world, where godly wisdom normally leads to positive results. But “normally” isn’t “always.” Job balances that by asking about unjust suffering. Ecclesiastes asks whether godly wisdom actually produces anything lasting and meaningful.

The Teacher wants to find something solid, permanent and good. But whatever path he explores along, he always runs up against the same huge obstacle at the end. In today’s passage, he mentions that great final obstacle for the first time – and it will loom larger and larger as we approach the end of the book. That obstacle is death.

Here, the Teacher makes it clear that it’s at least a bit better to be wise than to be a fool. The wise person “has eyes in his head”, while the fool “walks in darkness” – that is, wisdom will enable you to make better decisions in life.

But he comes back to the brutal reality that “one fate overcomes them both.” The wisest sage and the stupidest fool will end up in the same place: 6 feet under. On top of that, give it long enough, and everything they both did will be forgotten and irrelevant. Death is like the gigantic final boss in the video game of Life – and this final boss is impossible to defeat.

It’s hard to know how much the writer of Ecclesiastes knew, or suspected, about any hope beyond death. But what he certainly didn’t know about is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. That’s the game-changer – Jesus has smashed the final boss! And that means living with godly wisdom is not just a bit better; it’s a no-brainer. It’s the path to resurrection with Jesus and to solid and permanent joy.

Let these words from 1 Corinthians 15 fill your thoughts and your prayers now:I

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. … If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Cor. 15:17, 19-20)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our Senior Minister