JESUS IN ECCLESIASTES: MEANING UNDER THE SUN, GLORY BEYOND IT
Ecclesiastes opens with a sigh. Not the sigh of unbelief, but the weary exhale of a man who has seen too much. Pleasure was tasted and found thin; wisdom was pursued and found heavy; labor was embraced and found fleeting. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
The word itself carries the weight of breath—mist in the morning air, present for a moment, then gone. Life under the sun is restless, repetitive, unable to satisfy the hunger it awakens.
Yet Ecclesiastes is not a book of despair—it is a book of honesty. It strips the world bare of its illusions and refuses to let us baptize emptiness with religious slogans. Wisdom cannot save us. Wealth cannot secure us. Time erases all monuments. “That which is crooked cannot be made straight” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). The diagnosis is devastating—unless there is Someone who stands over the sun.
And there is.
Jesus Christ enters Ecclesiastes not as a footnote, but as its answer. The Preacher tells us that nothing new exists beneath the sun—“There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Christ does not contradict that truth; He transcends it. He does not arise from within the closed system of fallen creation—He comes from above it. “I am from above; you are from beneath” (John 8:23). In Him, something truly new appears—not a rearrangement of old dust, but resurrection life breaking into time.
Ecclesiastes grieves the tyranny of time: generations come and go, the earth abides, and humanity fades like grass (Ecclesiastes 1:4). Jesus steps into that grief and speaks words no philosopher dared to speak: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
The Preacher sees death as the great equalizer; Christ confronts death as the defeated enemy. What Ecclesiastes mourns, the Gospel answers.
The book also exposes the frustration of labor—work that never fully satisfies, effort that never fully rests. “What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3).
Jesus does not deny the burden; He lifts it. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Not escape from work, but rest within it—rest anchored not in outcomes, but in communion with Him.
Even the Preacher’s insistence that joy is a gift points quietly to Christ. “There is nothing better…than to eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor” (Ecclesiastes 2:24). Joy is not seized; it is received. Jesus later stands and cries, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). What Ecclesiastes tastes in fragments, Christ offers in fullness.
The book concludes not with cynicism, but with clarity: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
That command does not vanish in the New Testament—it is fulfilled. Jesus embodies perfect obedience and teaches reverent trust, drawing us not merely to duty, but to Himself.
And where Ecclesiastes warns that God will bring every work into judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:14), Christ stands as both Judge and Savior—the One who bore judgment so mercy could triumph.
Ecclesiastes tells the truth about life without Christ; the Gospel reveals life because of Him. Under the sun, all is vapor. In the Son, all is gathered, redeemed, and made new.
The ache Ecclesiastes awakens is not meant to crush us—it is meant to lead us. And it leads us, unmistakably, to Jesus.
BDD
