Scientific research on joy indicates that it has a host of benefits, including improving our immune system, alleviating stress, and even lengthening our lives. The author of Ecclesiastes would heartily agree. In chapter 8, he returns to what is now a familiar refrain: Enjoy life!

To understand the way Ecclesiastes speaks to our culture today, it is important to understand the broader context. Before commending enjoyment, the Teacher says: “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.”

We won’t always understand life. As the Teacher says, “No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun” (v. 17). The Teacher’s response is to fear God, live in relationship with Him, and enjoy the gifts He gives us. The modern world teaches us to ignore or cover up our sorrows by salving them with substances, bowing down to the blue-screen altar, or throwing ourselves into work. Those are temporary—and destructive—coping methods. The only solution, says the Teacher, is to submit our lives to the Creator and trust Him. And along the way, we should enjoy the good things God has given us. Such enjoyment is not a retreat from the world; rather, it is a brief respite that points backward to the Garden of Eden and forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Jesus is the ultimate example of a righteous person who “[got] what the wicked deserve” (v. 14). But through His death and resurrection, He turned the right back right-side up, undoing the sinful choices humans had made and conquering once for all death and the grave.

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