John 14:25-27
In Jesus We Find Peace
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
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 does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils 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 There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
Wisdom Is Meaningless
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! 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 twisted cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I thought to myself, “Look, I have grown and 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.
I believe that happiness is linked very much with how peaceful we feel...King Solomon was one of the wisest of men's and the richest and had a harem of wives and women, and yet when he wrote Ecclesiastes, he does not appear to be happy or in peace...
Man searches for happiness all his life...And we may find happiness in family, friends, our work, and what interests us...But there seems to be something missing and makes us restless...We are not at peace, because of this restlessness...So I might ask if we are also looking for some peaceful feeling that is in and around us...There seems to be this yearning inside man to find something he is looking for, yet cannot quite put his finger on what it is...Some people look to money, ambition, power, the flesh, society, their work, wisdom in search of this happiness...And after they have gotten all these things we ask, is that all there is...That seems to be part of what Solomon is asking throughout Ecclesiastes...
Maybe the Holy Spirit that is indwelt in us is nudging us towards the One who can satisfy all things and make us restful...As St. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”...And most importantly Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you...I do not give to you as the world gives...Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."...
C. S. Lewis says this about happiness, “And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”...
When we find God, then we can rest and find this happiness, this peace that Jesus talks about...His peace comes from another world, the Kingdom of God...