It was a unique name for a unique lady.
I officiated her funeral two weeks ago.
I began by giving some background on the root of her name.
It is thought to derive from the Greek word for lighthouse, so named for an engineering marvel of the ancient world, built in 300 BC off the cost of Egypt on the little Island named Pharos.
Standing over 300 feet tall, it was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.
I am quite sure Farolyn’s mom didn’t know she was naming her baby girl after an ancient lighthouse that protected sailors from the dangerous North African coastline…she probably just liked the name.
It is fascinating to me that a woman who faithfully…lived and shared the light of the gospel would providentially be named after a lighthouse and would live her last 15 years in optical darkness.
But there is more…she had been an interior designer by trade, she loved colors, she had a knack for them…but for 15 years, she could not see color with her physical eyes.
What is color?
When photons bounce off of stuff…some of the light is absorbed, some enters our retinas and is transferred via the optical nerve to the brain that registers it as purple, blue, yellow, green.
I offered a challenge in the service as we contemplated her life…did we see what we were seeing?
We saw photons bouncing off a once elegant lady, now with a broken body, laying in physical pain…she had not been out of the bed since last September.
But what did else was there to SEE in her life, her death, in her years of ministry and in her years of suffering?
As we sat in the church preparing for the service I asked my 4-year-old grandson what he thought.
He said, “It’s sad.”
I said, “Yes, and we are glad for her because she is in heaven.”
He pointed to the open casket not far from us, “No she’s not” he said, “She’s right there.”
That’s what he could see with his eyes…but there was more to see.
I said, “That’s her body, her soul is in heaven.”
“Yes,” he said, “and someday when there is a new heaven and new earth she will have a new body.”
Okay, Joe…you preschool theologian.
About a week later, my grandson, Lev, was born and lived out his entire earthly life in under 5 hours.
I saw terrible sadness in a hospital, I saw a broken little body…but what else did I see, what else was there for us see?
There was more than just sadness and death…but you have to see with more than retinas and optic nerves.
My 12-year grandson Oliver I were driving and together talking about the death of his great grandmother and the then probable death of his cousin.
*Side note here: I talk often about talking with my grandkids…I hope you get vision, if you don’t have one of applying Deut 6 to your own kids, grandkids…and even the children of others you might have influence over.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Life will present opportunity to talk of the gospel…look for and take those opportunities.
Anyway, Oliver and I talked about learning to see all that we were seeing.
I pointed to a tree…”you see leaves and trunk and limbs…you don’t see how soil, light, water are working together in that tree to make it grow.”
“We see the tree…but we don’t really “see” all that is that tree.”
How much more is that true for spiritual realities.
I gave Oliver this verse, the same one I used at Farolyn’s funeral, and I would later quote in the hospital room with little Lev.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor. 4:16-18
If we are not to lose heart when so many things can pull our hearts apart…so much can drain our hearts of courage…we must learn to see all that is there to see in the world around us.
We must see what is unseen…not what is unreal…just not seen with a retina and an optical nerve.
This week in our reading we will be in the book of Ecclesiastes.
The evidence points to Solomon having written Ecclesiastes towards the end of his life.
Aaron spoke last week about Solomon…his building of the temple, his gift of wisdom that he wasted on foolishness.
The word “Ecclesiastes” comes from a Greek translation of the Hebrew word for “teacher,” sometimes translated “preacher” from the first verse in the book.
The key word in the book in Hebrew is hebel, it’s translated “futility,” “meaningless,” or “vanity.”
The word is used 38 times, and it literally means “vapor.”
Life is like a wisp of smoke that seems substantial but try to grab it and there is nothing truly solid there.
It may seem like an odd book to find in the Bible, but it is not advocating becoming a relativist, where you can find your own truth, or a hedonist, where you find meaning in pleasure.
That’s what it seems to be saying on a mere surface reading.
A few key verses will help us understand the purpose of the book, we will look at some of them.
Ecclesiastes 1:2
“Absolute futility. Everything is futile.” (Hebel)
The first seven chapters describe Solomon’s pursuit of scientific discovery, philosophy, pleasure, alcohol, building projects, acquiring property, and sexual gratification.
All the kinds of stuff that humans pursue to find meaning and purpose.
All this, he found to be futile…without meaning or purpose.
Human efforts to find meaning apart from God are absolutely meaningless…vapor, a chasing after the wind.
You can’t catch the wind, and if you did…you would have nothing but air.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
“He has also put eternity in their hearts.”
Humans are stuck in time, but we have eternity built into us.
The reason we find life futile is because time itself feels like hebel, a fleeting and unpredictable vapor.
We live in time, but we are not made for just time.
Our hearts are made by God for the eternal God and yet we often seek to find meaning apart from God.
We try to wring all of our purpose from time rather than seeing our purpose as being eternal…much bigger than just this life.
This life matters…but it matters in light of eternity.
So, whether you live for 88 years or 5 hours…apart from the reality of the eternal God…it’s all Hebel…vanity, vapor.
It is a terrible irony that a man given the gift of great wisdom would embrace a life of folly.
In 1 Kings 3 we find Solomon encountering God in a dream where he is told to ask for whatever he desires, and it will be given to him.
This is not some silly fable about a geni-god…so what is happening here?
Jesus said…
Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. John 14:13,14
Jesus was seeking to evoke faith…to turn their hearts and desires and prayers to him.
We know that we will not get every single thing we might want or ask for…but as we ask in his name (in his authority…his will) and for his sake, his glory…it will be done.
God is pushing Solomon towards embracing a trusting faith as he becomes King.
Solomon responds…”I want wisdom, because I am going need it.”
God replies: “That is the right answer…you will have it and much more.”
But as the years went by Solomon learned to trust only Solomon and became a man ruled by his own passions and his heart turned away from God.
Solomon traded the gift of wisdom for pleasure and folly…it was a terrible trade.
Ecc. 2:1
I thought in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.”
That is just so dumb, you are going to find out what is good…by doing whatever you want to do?
How has that ever worked out?
Years in the future Micah would write in summary about what God had said repeatedly to his people over the centuries.
“He has shown you o man, what is good, to love mercy, act justly, walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
You don’t have to experiment with sin and folly to find out what is good…God has told you.
How did it go, wise Solomon…finding out what is good on your own?
well….he wrote…it proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?”
Laughter fades, pleasure ends in emptiness…it didn’t work.
The sexual revolution of the 60’s…has lead to what?
Sexual addictions, sexual brokeness, much less not more sexual pleasure and fulfillment…you can’t outsmart God.
So, Solomon, that didnt’ work…what then?
I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly.
Really, that was your plan?
Self-medicate and fully embrace folly.
When it comes to sin…experience is a terrible teacher.
God’s word is the best teacher.
Look at that contrast:
Solomon: “I thought in my heart, I will find what is good.”
Micah: “He has shown you what is good.”
We want our children to learn some things by experience…but many things they must learn by listening and believing their parents…because experience can be catastrophic.
I knew a man (we were in high school together) whose very young child, pulled away from his mom’s hand and did not listen to their commands to stop…ran into the street and was killed.
I know it is a terrible story…but I hope to drive deep the point that to learn sin by experience is a terrible choice…we must learn to listen to, believe, and obey God’s word.
Two questions are asked at the end of chapter six: “What is the purpose of life?” and “What happens after we die?”
“For who knows what is good for anyone in life, in the few days of his futile life that he spends like a shadow? Who can tell anyone what will happen after him under the sun?”
Ecclesiastes 6:12
Well…God knows…and God can tell you.
These two questions are essential components of everyone’s worldview.
Many people have not carefully thought through these important questions, but everyone lives with some idea as to their answers.
We simply must not get the answers to these two questions wrong.
To get the second wrong is to lose your life forever.
To be clear, science, human wisdom…cannot discover the answer to these questions.
We can build super computers, develop AI, go into space, make antibiotics…we cannot discover…why are we here, and what happens when we die?
These are the two most important questions for a person to ask and to answer…your purpose in time, and your eternal destiny.
This has to be revealed by God…it cannot be worked out by human reasoning.
The author has intelligence and knowledge, but he is often grasping for straws in his attempts to answer these questions because of the limits of human wisdom.
Remember he is struggling to make sense out of a life that seems to be, in the end, futile, a vapor.
Let’s jump to the end of this book, the final concusion.
First we find a warning against an over reliance on human wisdom…he is old, and he has run down every rabbit trail only to come to dead ends over and over.
Ecc 12:12: Of the making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
If he warned about the “making of many books” being endless in his time, imagine what he would say today!
Around 3 million books are self-published each year.
You students who don’t like school love this verse “much study wearies the body”…. “right on! Solomon. Preach it!”
But is not saying that books or study are bad…in context he is saying
There is no end to human speculation on important questions…questions that human minds can’t answer.
So, let’s go to his conclusion:
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
The book on vaporous futility will conclude with solid purpose.
Humans have a purpose; it is not theirs to discover through foolish pursuits, but it has been given by God in revelation.
Our purpose is to fear (revere, worship) God and obey his commands.
Because-
He is the righteous judge; he alone defines what is good and what is evil…he will bring a final judgement
God alone defines human purpose…and God will judge human lives…that is our destiny.
Solomon has largely wasted his life.
He has lived for pleasure and self; he has not feared God nor kept his commandments.
But here he gives the right answer to those two all-important questions: What is the purpose of life and what happens after this life?
The purpose of life: Fear and obey God…keep his commandments.
What happens after this life: God will, in the end, exercise righteous judgment.
The writer of Ecclesiastes had a limited view because he did not have the full revelation of God that was yet to come in Christ Jesus.
Paul uses a Greek translation of hebel (futility) in his letter to the Romans.
But his words are far better than Solomons because they have the gospel conclusion…he speaks of our future gospel hope in the midst of the hebel of so much of this current life.
Weeds grow, houses decay, bodies break and die…but hebel is not the final word…hope is.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility (hebel)—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.”
Romans 8:18-25
Our hope in Christ is secure…it is fixed in his unchanging promise.
You don’t hope for what you already have…you have it.
So, we have the initial installment on our hope…God’s Spirit in us, the first fruits of the full harvest to come.
We must see now with faith…what is not yet visible with retinas…we see through the Hebel to the hope.
This is why and how we do not grieve like those who have no hope…we don’t just see death, we see resurrection hope someday.
One we can see with retinas, the other with faith.
So, meanwhile, we groan because sin has created hebel, futility.
But we groan with gospel hope, because Christ has come and Christ will return…the dust of death is not the final word.
Little Joseph was right…Resurrection bodies, a new heaven and earth…will be the final word.
Paul wrote that we do groan under the weight of this life as it currently is.
Things can often feel futile, but we groan with gospel hope!
Not human hebel…not vanity, emptiness, vapor.
We have what Solomon did not: the Holy Spirit empowering our perspective.
We do not look around and see only hebel; we see a hope!
We see a woman of great beauty and faith and love…now laying in optical darkness, but living and dying in spiritual light.
We see a 5-hour old baby take his last breath…but we see much more than that.
We see gospel hope; we see eternal weight of glory.
Bruce and Rachel Brown…spending their days waiting for his physical body to respond to treatment…seeing hospitals, and needles…but they see much more than that.
None of this is easy…if you think it is easy, you don’t understand.
Meanwhile we groan…does that sound easy to you?
Let me read that great passage again about not losing heart.
Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor. 4:16-18
We cannot understand this passage without reference to what the “therefore” is there for.
So, let’s back up and read.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. 13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.
THEREFORE…since all that is true…we do not lose heart.
Hard pressed is normal.
Perplexed is normal.
Persecuted is normal.
Struck down is normal.
When you think, “What is going on here, this is hard? God where are you, what is wrong?”
The is the new normal, new after Genesis 3 and human sin.
But hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted and struck down are not all there is to see…
Hard pressed, but not crushed
Perplexed, but not in despair
Persecuted, but not abandoned
Struck down, but not destroyed
What is wrong? Sin is wrong. Everything is wrong…but all will be made right.
“Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”
2 Cor. 5:2
Someday we will experience resurrection…Meanwhile…for now…we groan.
Groaning in this time of hebel is normal.
But the final answer is not hebel…vanity…it is resurrection hope.
We are told “we do not lose heart”…precisely because so much in our lives can cause us to lose heart.
How do we keep from losing heart? “Keeping our eyes fixed on what is unseen.”
Seeing what we cannot see with retinas and optical nerves and physical brains alone.
Putting the full weight of our confidence in God and his word…seeing what we cannot see on our own.
APPLICATION:
Last week I was working on an electrical issue…I started down one path…I thought, this is the problem, but then then got the solution wrong…because I had the problem wrong.
When I found the problem, I found the solution.
If you get the problem wrong you will get the solution wrong.
The problem is that the world is broken, it is being made new, it is going to be made new…but for now, creation has been subjected to futility…hebel.
The gospel solution is already (we have first fruits) but not yet (meanwhile we groan.)
Don’t look for wrong reasons to explain your groaning
Don’t look for wrong solutions to fix your groaning.
Wrong reasons:
-God is the problem, he is not faithful, he is not good, he is not there.
-The people around me are the problem, they aren’t doing enough
-My circumstances are my core problem; I need more of this or less of that
You may very well not understand what God is doing or not doing…but he is faithful…he is never the problem.
It’s not that the people around you couldn’t do better, or that your circumstances couldn’t be better…it is that these things are not your core problem.
Wrong solutions:
-Turn away from God, turn to your own ideas about how to deal with the groaning, the hebel of this life…this will not go well.
-I feel lonely, unfilled, unhappy…I need more or different friends…my friends need to change to do better…external solutions to an internal problem.
-my spouse must change, or I need a different spouse
-I need a different job, house, car, relationship, hobby, church, small group
-I will pursue more physical pleasure
I am groaning here…someone is failing me, something is wrong…this must be fixed now!
No, it will not be finally and fully fixed now…
We groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies
The groaning is not going away…but you will increase the hebel in your life…if you try to make it stop using your own will and wisdom.
So…do we just adjust to sorrow and groaning and pain…do we become like the Buddhists…seeking to suppress desire so we will not be disappointed by the hebel of this life?
NO!
Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
We are being renewed in our hearts day by day.
Our troubles are light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory.
So…what we do…what we must do…is fix our eyes on what is unseen, not just what is seen.
We embrace joy, we embrace hope…we worship and obey and enjoy God.
Solomon after a life wasted on folly…wrote…
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Yes Solomon, we are to fear God and keep his commandments and yes he will judge every deed…but no, everything has not been heard, not yet…and Solomon, you didn’t have the conclusion of the matter.
Here is the conclusion of the matter…800 years later, Christ came, Christ died, Christ rose…and now sometime in our future…Christ will return.
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37
Now, Solomon, all has been heard, and that is the conclusion of the matter.