Why Nothing is New Under the Sun

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. Ecclesiastes 1:7

The sea is never full because the waters go back to where they came from, and all starts again. Cycles, nothing new under the sun, life is meaningless, said Solomon. Everything we do has done and will be done before. Our life is like that of a hamster running in a circular cage; no matter how fast we run, we don't seem to get anywhere--but does this mean the hamster's running is useless? At least he gets some exercise, and if he takes a moment to look at what is around him rather than just at the endless track before him, he may realize the point is not in "getting somewhere" but in "how" we get there, and what we do on the way.

There may be nothing new under the sun because so far we have not even learned our lesson from what is old under the sun. We become so caught up in our own goals, heads bent over our maps and compass (or GPS) that we fail to see the beauty on the roadsides or the horizon before us, and fail to learn from it, and from those we meet.

Pretty much everything I do has been done before by others, or will be done after me, and they may well do it much better. But there are two new things under the sun--myself, and the people whose lives I touch. I have never been here before, and will not pass this way again. And only I can touch the lives I encounter daily in the way that my Father has prepared me, and me alone, to touch them. But will each encounter bring them, and me, closer to my Father's destination or to my own.

I am a new creation under the son. So are my wife and sons, and my family and friends. And you too are a new creation. And if the world seems the same as yesterday or a century ago, that is a good thing, because we do not have to re-invent the wheel, but simply learn from those who went before us, and try to do things differently this time. And perhaps when we get it right, we'll be released from the spinning hamster cage and our Father will make us a new creation, on a new earth, under an eternal son.

Yesterday the stock market tumbled yet again. It will probably turn around eventually, only to tumble again. Up and down, round and round. Like the rest of life. Nothing new--except me and you.

J.B.Meyers, in 1894, wrote about Exclesiastes 1:7 in My Daily Homily (available now in a less expensive reprint entitled "Great Verses Through the Bible," by Zondervan):

"The complaint of this chapter is the tiresome monotony of existence. Always the same tedious routine! The jaded soul of the worldling, who has put God out of his life, sees nothing rresh or interesting anywhere, and yawns with weariness. King Solomon had everything that the world could give to make his years rich, glad, and useful. But his heart turned away from God to things, from the only true God to idols, from the spiritual to the sensual, from heaven to earth; and he became a jaded voluptuary, who records his experiences on these pages, to warn coming generations. His words remind us of Byron's lament at his life being in the sere and yellow leaf; of the closing sentence of Vanity Fair; and of entries in the journals of the world's greatest wits and courtiers.

"All the rivers of earthly joy may be flowing into your heart, but they will never fill it. They may recede, or dry up, or ebb; but if not, still they will never satisfy. The pleasures of this world after a while become monotonous, and pall on oru taste. the appetite grows with its food. But in Christ there is perenneial interest. The water that He gives rises up to eternal life. In his love and service there is always satisfaction and blessedness. We need not go outside of Him for new delights; and to know Him is to possess a secret which makes all things new.

"I know of a gentleman, who has everything that wealth can give, but who is kept in a perpetual state of irritation, because he cannot eradicate the daisies from his lawn. There is a freckle on every flower, a stain on every leaf, a drawback in every lot, that we may be driven to find perfect fruition in God only."




Bill Brown
Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com