Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
Everything is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
Matthew 28:16-20
All Authority Has Been Given to Jesus
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
John 17:3
Jesus Tells Us What Eternal Life Is
3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
I think there have been many good men and women who have walked the earth and have led others...Many were very smart...And many tried to help others...Personally, I think the best leaders in the world do their best for the people they represent and follow them…Many a good leader has looked at what is best for their country or organization, as well as their own people, and have tried to implement different things and good things for people...And most of these men that have tried to help the people around them, have had an authority given to them by their voters of their nation or by their closest followers...And I use the word authority here, because leaders either have authority around them from their people or followers, or they just choose to take up their authority on their own...But somehow a good leader has this authority around them...But, it seems, the fame of many a leader goes by, and some, if not many leaders get forgotten and fade with time...And there have been numerous times and numerous leaders with their failings and flaws that have made them less likely to succeed around the very people they are trying to help or lead...There are many different reasons why some leaders have faded in time...But most leaders start with a great hope...As I think about Jesus, no one has had the authority which surrounded Him, who did not receive one vote from one voter...No, He just picked out twelve ordinary men one day, and went off to teach them what He knew...And because theses twelve felt something about Him, maybe this authority or charisma, they followed Him...And what He taught them was about God...
Many leaders do not seem to touch on the kind of problems of mankind as He did...He touches the heart of man...He touches the soul of man...He shows us that their are these things that are sacred and holy...He teaches us that there are these eternal things...
Jesus teaches with an authority that is different from others...Everything He did was with such an authority He had around Him, it astonishes me...He did not come to earth, it seems to me, to be a Leader…Although He was certainly destined to be One...He came more to help others...He also came to teach us about His Father...He also talked a lot about sin...And in teaching us about God and helping others, He became Someone, we will never forget...His Spirit still lives after two thousand years...And His words still live after two thousand years...This persistence of His Presence in this world is still a mystery to me...When we look at other men who have walked the earth, who can you compare Him to?…He is truly a Being, a Man by Himself, completely unique is this respect...I am not sure it is fair to call Him a Man...His ideals, His parables, His truths that He spoke, His manner of convincing others and Him getting His ideals and teachings across to others are completely unique...The way He spoke and taught cannot be explained either in a human way or by human means...There is this Something different that surrounds Him…And in all these things that caused Him to be different, He became a Leader, THE LEADER of LIFE...He spoke and worked on the most difficult of man's problems...
His birth, His teachings, His life, His death, His ascension are all totally profound...His teachings which are over two thousand years old, which always seem to be about the eternities, somehow still touch us today in our daily lives, and in the present time…What other men, can we say this about?...He teaches forgiveness, mercy, and love and man’s problems and gives the most admirable solutions to seemingly unanswerable problems, through His teachings on love...His Gospel still marches across time, two thousand years after His death...For His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection, His ascension remain this insolvable mystery for me...His teachings and spoken word makes me always think of God and the afterlife we might have with Him and His Father…He plunges me into this sacred and holy places of my mind, which no one else can do…Without Him, I do not even know if I would feel there are sacred and holy things…And by Him doing this in me and for me, I must believe that He is Divine...I cannot escape Him in my thoughts...He is always there...In writing about Him, it seems like I have something always missing, because He is more than I will be ever able to write about…
For me, somehow He gives meaning to the meaningless…I so much enjoy reading about those who are original and have original thoughts, and are original…But it seems He is the most, if not the only Man, who was ever truly original and gives an answer and meaning to Solomon’s Book of Ecclesiastes...