Some of life's questions are simply too big to be answered in a clear cut, straight forward way. For example, "Why do people like bologna?" How about, "Why is bologna spelled the way that it is?" Furthermore, "How come the St. Louis Blues can be absolutely awful one day, and spectacular the next?" Lastly, "Why do they call it Reality TV when its obviously not real?"
Ok, those are some of the gut wrenching, earth shattering questions that I ponder about on a regular basis. How about you?
On a more serious note, there are some questions that have a tendency to grip us....refusing to leave us alone, to simply refuse to allow us to shrug them away and say, "Ah, whatever. I don't need to worry about that."
A few weeks ago, one of the students in my youth group asked me, "What is the meaning of life? I mean, why are we here?" This student had gotten sick and tired of the traditional Sunday school answers and the aimless ways that our culture seeks to answer that question. Seemingly being the epitome of all questions, I am sure that this student had grown tired of all the shallow answers to it. I am sympathize with this student. We have the tendency not to give that question its proper respect and truly examine it (or, better yet, allow it to examine us).
Personally, I am not a big fan of the "traditional Sunday school" answers either because they tend to be the equivalent of fishing in shallow waters. You may get something out of it, but its not going to be that big.
The truth is, I, in all honesty, would not be a Christian or a pastor today if I didn't believe that I had truly come to discover and continually rediscover what the answer to that great question is...or, more importantly, "who" the answer to that question is. But we, as Christians, have settled for the shallow waters for far too long. We love the Scriptures in the Bible that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside while we neglect the ones that challenge, convict or even scare us. We settle for premeditated and rehearsed answers in our answers to our skeptics instead of resolving to always ponder things in new ways.
In response to my student's question, I told them to read the very last chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes (in the Old Testament), especially the last few verses, because the writer addresses that question square on. He tells us what the meaning of life is and what we are here for. However, over the passed several weeks, I have come to realize that I was a bit off in my assessment. Yes, he does answer the question there. However, I neglected to see that the entire book is his response to that great question, "What is the meaning of life?" To neglect all of his work up to that point would truly miss the meaning of the answer that he finally feels resolved to give.
Over the next few weeks, I will be uploading all of the notes from the study that our youth group will be going through. If you can't join us on Sunday mornings, we welcome you to wrestle with us over this tough question. Furthermore, we invite you to examine Solomon's shocking, somewhat horrible, but utterly brilliant answer to that great question.
For now, a video teaser....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U8m5QR-1xw
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