The Helpless and the Good

Helpless beings in a meaningless world: this is Solomon’s appraisal of the human race. Again and again, throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, these are adjectives he uses to describe us, slaves and kings, alike. We stumble about, blind, naked, and without understanding. With all our art we try to conjure a meaning behind our lives. With all our science we try to save ourselves from our sickness and the inevitability of our dying. In both enterprises, we fail miserably. Where it matters, we are helpless.

This is Solomon’s thesis, and he defends it with merciless precision. Despite our efforts to control our circumstances, fortune and disaster still befall us, unexpected and inexorable. More disturbingly still, there is a consciousness that exists outside ourselves, and that is not helpless but possesses both might and understanding. We live at the mercy of a great and unknowable power.

Solomon reminds us of a terrible truth that is easy to forget, immersed as we are in the joyful splendor of the grace revealed in the New Testament: God did not have to be good to us. He could have been cruel and merciless, and we would have had to serve him just the same. We could have been nothing more than slaves and playthings, and all our rebellion would be just as futile. Solomon didn’t know the nature of his God, only that he was God, that he must be glorified simply because he was glorious. But he is also good.

This is the good news of the gospel: that this great and alien intelligence chose to make himself known to us and to tell us that the meaning behind the story of the universe was simply that he loves us, and wants to share his existence with us.

Respond in Prayer

Dear Father God, you are great, and I am small and have nothing to offer you, yet you love me. Let me know you better and love you more perfectly today, that I might live in more perfect relationship with you as you desire. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Michael Bonikowsky