Not All Is Vanity

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is Vanity.
Ecclesiastes 1.2

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1Corinthians 15.58

As I write this athletes from around the globe are competing in Vancouver, British Columbia for Olympic glory, and the chance to win some very highly prized medals. For a chance to stand on the podium, receive the acclaim of their countrymen, and much of the world, and maybe even be interviewed by Bob Costas, fit and strong young men and women have labored for many years and countless hours. And their achievements are certainly impressive. But it won’t be long, certainly not much more than a lifetime or two at best, that it will all be forgotten. For even a shiny Olympic medal cannot guarantee any kind of success or meaning outside the arena. And the arena will be empty in less than a fortnight. Not to diminish the accomplishments of Olympians, but it’s all vanity. Just ask the writer of Ecclesiastes.

But Paul would have some words of encouragement for the athletes, even as he had words of encouragement for the church in Corinth, and for us. I am sure Paul meant no disrespect to the author of Ecclesiastes when he told the Corinthians that there was at least one thing that is not vain—their labor in the Lord. In truth, though Christ’s Incarnation came many centuries after Ecclesiastes was written, its author realized in the end that, although he had embraced many vain pursuits in his day, the one thing that did matter, that wasn’t vain, was fearing God and keeping his commandments. (Ecclesiastes 12.13)

No one, of course, had ever been able to keep God’s commandments when the book of Ecclesiastes was written, and no one ever since its writing has succeeded in keeping all the commandments of God, no one that is, except the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus so perfectly kept all the commandments of his Father that it can truly be said that in Christ the law (God’s commandments) has been fulfilled. This is not to suggest that anyone should imagine that, “If Jesus could do it, I can too.” If anyone else could have, Jesus would not have needed to. All our efforts to keep the commandments of God are in fact vain when we labor to keep them on our own. Yet the writer of Ecclesiastes is to be credited, though he did not have a prescription for keeping God’s commandments that works, for at least understanding that in the end it was all that mattered.

Like today’s Olympic champions, the author of Ecclesiastes had attempted and accomplished much. There wasn’t much of anything he had not tried and succeeded at in the world. Yet he looked at all he had done and all he had experienced, and recognized all of it was no more lasting and substantial than a mist that hangs over a valley in the morning and is gone without a trace in a matter of minutes. It was all vain.

By the time Paul wrote to the church in Corinth there was an alternative to vain living, there was life, and abundant life at that, now accessible in Jesus Christ. (John 10.10) And so it was that Paul could encourage the Corinthians to hang in and persevere, for in the Lord, and in the Lord alone they could labor fruitfully, and not in vain. Oh it was, and still is true, that the world may esteem, and in some cases even long remember, our labors. We may even earn a gold medal. But the author of Ecclesiastes was quite correct; in the end all our labor apart from Christ, if piled on a scale, would weigh less than a breath. But the works of Christ, well they tipped the balance forever on the cross. Now through the Holy Spirit it is possible, the world’s opinions and praise of man’s labors notwithstanding, for our life and our work to matter, to make a real and eternal difference. In the Lord our labor bears enduring fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5.22-23) There is not a trace of vanity in that fruit, and I can guarantee, along with Paul, that long after the glitter is gone from the world’s medals, the labor in Christ that produces such fruit will shine in the kingdom of God.