During the initial stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, I was driving home looking at the blooming trees wondering how it could be that so much beauty existed in the midst of complete chaos and uncertainty.
Creation wasn’t stopping along with the rest of the world in panic and confusion. Trees were producing the most glorious flowers in shades of royal purple, pearl pink, and bridal gown white. Light particles were streaming between tree branches as though all was right and as it should be in the world.
How could this be? How could such undeniable beauty show her face when destruction and despair were hovering over her shoulder? Wouldn’t she want to hide and wait until she could steal the show?
I often talk to students about the concept of dialectics—how two things that appear opposite can both be true at the same time. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a skill-based form of therapy that teaches tools to manage difficult emotions and address relational conflict. DBT’s underlying philosophy is the balance of opposites. We often view life though an either/or framework, missing the power of and/both.
So many truths in the Bible are paradoxical yet balanced by the overarching theme of the Gospel. God is both merciful and just. We are made in the image of God, therefore possess unmeasurable worth and we are inherently sinful since birth. There is remarkable beauty in the world and pervasive brokenness.
Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books in the Bible because it holds these tensions in such delicate precision. Beauty exists alongside brokenness. COVID-19 serves as a reminder of what has been understood since the Fall: “What is crooked cannot be made straight…” (Ecc. 1:15).
Crooked here means “unknowable.” So much of life is a mystery, impossible to fully understand. We don’t have control over our lives the way we think do. Autonomy is only an illusion.
The phrase “under the sun” is used throughout the book to describe the author’s observations of the world. All of life under the sun is concluded to be vanity. The word “vanity” is the Hebrew word hebel which means “mist,” “vapor,” or “mere breath.” Both the good and bad in life is fleeting. All will end someday – moments of suffering and joy alike.
The impermanence of life is compared to wind, air that can’t be held in one’s hand, contained, or controlled. It’s outside of our grasp to harness and manipulate to serve our purposes. Similarly, in a global pandemic we’re forced to accept our powerlessness.
This book doesn’t gloss over the reality that life is messy and difficult. It boldly asks the hard questions of life. A church I attended in LA did a sermon series on the book concluding that, “Ecclesiastes is the question to which Jesus is the answer.”
The Creator of beauty became broken so that we might be restored to a right relationship with God. He who made the sun came under its vanity and futility, subjecting Himself to what man is ultimately powerless over – death.
Yet Jesus conquered death, rising from the dead and making life outside of the sun’s rays a future reality. Though the majority of what happens in life is outside of our control, Christians know the One who has all the power.
Specifically with eating disorders, individuals seek to gain control over that which they are powerless by micromanaging everything that goes into their body.
Releasing control by allowing one’s body to change as it needs to is twofold with accepting one’s powerlessness in most of life – especially the past.
Trust in God’s unchanging and perfect character provides the believer a stability that can’t be found in an ever-changing body and world.
In brokenness, the beauty of Christ prevails. He is in control. His power is our protection.