“The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises” (Eccl 1:5). Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises takes its title from this verse. In Hemingway’s novel, the narrative centers on the moral dissipation of post-WWI characters. There’s no paucity of wounded men and women, trying to cope with their existential struggles to kill their wounds.

The problems, however, persist. Why? Because rather than turning to God, they turn away from God. They get angry at the God they reject. Where’s the wisdom in that? It’s folly, of course. You get angry, but rather than returning to the Author of life, you curse and flee. And the end result of course is nihilism and self-destruction. 

The goal of Ecclesiastes is to teach us pilgrims to return to God. Rather than hiding behind contemporary fig leaves and attempting to hide from the holy, the wise pilgrim will admit that his biggest problem is his own sin. And the cure for that is not a pill, or thing, or activity; the cure is Christ and his gospel.