The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. – Ecclesiastes 1:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 26, 2016): Ecclesiastes 1

In Latin, her name is Sol. She is the bright light in the sky and has been worshipped as the sustainer of life. While we might argue with that, the reality is that if God had not placed the Sun in the sky, then there would have had to be some other source of energy to keep life on our planet alive. Informally, Sol is a yellow dwarf star that is about 4.6 billion years old. She is middle aged, and there is not likely to be any significant change in her appearance for the next 5 billion years. But after the 5 billion years have passed she will begin to die. One of the most significant changes will be that she will transform from being a yellow dwarf star into a red giant. Then Sol will become so large that she will engulf the orbits of Mercury and Venus, and possibly even the Earth. But by that time there will be no one left alive on our planet to witness the coming catastrophe. The Earth will have long ago become uninhabitable.

Sol is not unusual; there are many stars like her, all with the same life cycle to look forward. Some red giants have already passed through the cycle. But what makes Sol different, at least for us, is that she is the one that we see rise every morning and set every night. She is the welcome Watcher over every one of our days. Without Sol, beach days would be meaningless. She is the light that illuminates our Solar System. Without her, the earth would be in darkness. The moon would still rise and set, but the light of the moon is only borrowed from Sol, so without Sol, we would not be able to see her. All that would be left for us would be utter darkness.

So Solomon begins his treatise on wisdom. The orthodoxy that he had been taught stressed that everything was created to bring glory to God. But the reality of Solomon chasing after wisdom is that even Wisdom itself is not enough to convey meaning. Ultimate meaning had to come from God. If God is removed from the equation, then all that is left is the monotony of the sun circling the earth – or as we realize now, the earth orbiting the sun. It is a process that is both wearisome and monotonous.

Or maybe we can phrase it this way. The sun rises every morning on Mars, but there is no one there to appreciate the beauty of the sight on the Red Planet. We are here because God has placed us here. The rising of the Sun on Earth is a beauty that we appreciate, and the setting of the Sun is a promise that, in just a few hours, Sol will return in the east bringing with her the light and the warmth of which we are in need. Sol does the same thing on Mars and Venus, but there is no life there that depends on it. So what is monotony there, is beauty here. This is the way that God has designed it, and so we praise his name with the rising of every sun.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 2