Get Over the Sun

Get over it. Yeah, that’s not very compassionate. Not a phrase often associated with tenderness. But, lately, lately I’ve found some comfort there. A song has been ringing in my ears for a few weeks now, and I’ve just begun to marinate in what it really means in my life. Here are the lyrics… And if you haven’t heard it I would encourage you to check it out—

Sitting around the fireplace
With a friend who’s been through it all
Soloman, wisest one
Tell me what you have found
Under the sun, under the sun
He answered

Get over the sun
Where life is hidden

Then he put on
A somber face
Talked about how
The rich man will waste
Away in the ground
Where the poor man is found
Painted up, like a clown
Under the sun, under the sun
He answers

Son you’ll soon be done
A life spent on some shiny god
Who leaves you empty
-Shane & Shane

The song is about King Soloman who looked high and low in life for meaning—and found “all is meaningless, vanity.” He tried working hard, partying hard, etc etc. Nothing. He found nothing worth-while. Read Ecclesiastes. It can get pretty depressing—I tried this great thing and this noble thing and oh yeah and there was that other awesome thing too. And it all sucked. I was all meaningless. Just utter rubbish. Here are a few excepts from Soloman’s thoughts from chapter 1—

2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

He also writes, “For who knows what is good for man in life, during the few and meaningless days he passes through like a shadow? Who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?" (Ecclesiastes 6:12). That’s a pretty hopeless conclusion. That’s dark. Have you ever been there? Have you ever just felt like nothing matters?

You could stop there. We could be left hopeless. Ecclesiastes concludes, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body….” May I just stop and say, “AMEN!” to that! Anyhow, Soloman continues, “…Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man…” (12:12b-13). I don’t know about you, but that just wasn’t the grand finale I was hoping for—everything is meaningless but we still must fulfill a duty. Sounds burdensome, wearisome. Sounds like exactly where we began.

But I don’t think so after all. I think I’m often times looking in the wrong place. I can’t see far past the horizon. I can’t see far past myself for that matter. And I’m so quick to forget that there is so much more to life than me, my, and mine. I wrestle in my petty problems and self-service. I forget the big God I know because I’m serving me or some other worthless idol. And may I add that sometimes my idols are very well disguised—they come in the form of spirituality, achieving great and noble things, serving others in dire need and so forth…. But anything other than the real deal is, well, nothing more than a fraud. It is leaves us empty.

I want to get over the sun. I want to find where life is hidden—not just the living, breathing kind of life but that abundant, full life. My things, my accomplishments, even my spirituality—it will all be burned up by the Sun. I’m going to get over it. Because there—there, life is hidden.

And the beauty—

"I have been young, and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing."
Psalm 34:25-26

We’ll never go hungry. He is ever so generous. May we not be robbed from His generosity because we nibble far too long on the wrong side of the Sun. May we get over the Sun—where life is hidden. Life. True, real, authentic life.