Andy Talks

In this Wednesday reflection that opens a new series in Ecclesiastes, the shift from the New Testament epistles to Old Testament wisdom literature is grounded in a simple observation: we are always searching for meaning, and most of the things we search in come up empty. The Teacher — almost certainly Solomon — opens with one of Scripture's most sobering refrains: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Generations rise and fall, the wind circles, the sea never fills, and most of us will be forgotten within a few generations. Rather than finding that depressing, the reflection finds it liberating: there is nothing new under the sun, which means we are not alone in our struggles. The same search for meaning, the same temptations, the same sense of emptiness in earthly things — people have faced all of it before us. Solomon had everything the world could offer and still found himself asking whether any of it meant anything. The answer Ecclesiastes is building toward, and the answer the reflection points to now,