EVIL UNDER THE SUN (2)

(Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:3)

"God will judge the righteous and the wicked..." (v17)

In last week's sermon summary we considered how the world responds to suffering. We considered an illustrative range of philosophies and psychologies that people adopt to cope with suffering when it enters their lives. These included the monist who denies suffering, the hedonist who avoids suffering, the stoic who ignores suffering, the existentialist who defies suffering, the idealist who rejects suffering and the romantic who confesses suffering. None of these views (or those related to them) is right. Their tendency is to mislead, embitter, trivialize, burden and dehumanize those who suffer. All these views are harmful to human-beings and useless in providing lasting solutions or comfort. None of them engage with reality.

Ecclesiastes, our Preacher, is a realist. And he comes to our rescue in making sense of and responding to this vexed subject of suffering. His appraisal takes account of the true nature of our world. According to Ecclesiastes, our world is a place of injustice, wickedness, corruption and oppression (3:16, 4:1). As a fish swims in water or a bird flies through the air, so the human-being lives within an environment that is intrinsically unjust, wicked, corrupt and oppressive. "Under the sun" (v16) - ie within the physical universe, this is unavoidable. And this is where suffering comes from. This is why suffering pervades our world and remains the universal experience of everyone who lives in our world.

Having drawn a realistic baseline (which many secular philosophies and psychologies fail or refuse to recognize) our Preacher goes on to provide a radical explanation as to why our world is this way and why suffering is thus endemic to human existence. The centre of this passage deals with the subject of death: "All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return" (v20). Solomon tells us that death holds the key to making sense of suffering in our world. And his language is replete with allusions to Genesis 3:19 which records God's judgement on the rebellion of humankind against his rule. The phrase in v18: "...the children of man..." could equally be translated: 'the children of Adam'. The Preacher is telling us that man's primordial rebellion against God is what brought death into the world. And this same rebellion is responsible for all the wickedness and suffering in our world.

In short, suffering is the consequence of humanity's fallen nature. This is a gloomy analysis indeed. And Ecclesiastes doesn't let us avoid it. He concludes this passage by telling us that those who have not yet come into existence are more fortunate than the dead. And the least fortunate category of all people are the living who have to witness "the evil deeds that are done under the sun" (v3)!

Now the Preacher takes us deeper yet. He reaches beyond what lies under the sun and tells us that there will be a final reckoning by God. Injustice, wickedness, corruption and oppression will one day be judged by God. These things will be put right. Justice will come. Like the Jane Austen novel that always concludes with a happy ending, our world will finally face the judgement and correction it deserves. The problem is that we are the problem! If our inherited rebellion is responsible for the wickedness and suffering in the world, then we are the ones who can expect eventually to face God's righteous judgement. Is there really no hope for humankind?

Within this profound, brutally realistic and deeply condemnatory message comes a dazzling ray of light. Its brilliance is exaggerated by the darkness of its backdrop. v17 tells us that God will judge the righteous before the wicked. What can that mean? The Bible makes clear that in God's sight no-one is righteous (Romans 3:10). Who then is this Righteous One that God will judge before he judges the wicked?

The New Testament tells us this: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God..." (1 Peter 3:18). The whole message of the Bible is that Jesus Christ suffered in the place of sinful humanity - that God's righteous judgement upon our sins was poured out upon a Righteous One who voluntarily took our place. So suffering isn't merely an issue. It's not a problem that Christians have to struggle to come to terms with. Suffering lies at the heart of Christianity. The only truly unjust suffering that has ever happened in our world is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And it was unquestionably the greatest suffering that our world has ever seen. Jesus experienced the pains of Hell, magnified billions of times, as he hung on the cross in our place, taking the punishment for all our sins upon himself. Our question to God is not: 'Why do you let suffering happen in our world?' Rather our question to God is: 'Why did you let this suffering happen to your Son?' God's answer to that question puts all human suffering in perspective. And it extends to the believing sufferer the promise of eternal relief in a place that lies beyond the sun, beyond our world of injustice and wickedness.

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