Nothing new? - 23 January 2025

There is nothing new in the whole world – even when you point something out as new, don’t you believe it, because “it has all happened before”. This early in the year, I find it a bit tiresome to wrestle with the thoughts expressed by the philosopher. Although it is one of my favourite books, it can sometimes make me feel downcast. Just when you start hoping that this new year will bring something new, you read that everything has happened before, there is nothing new to look forward to. Is this really what is meant by this verse?

We are prone to use these words in a wrong way, as I want to illustrate by the following. I do not buy on the internet, but recently my wife showed me a pair of running shoes that I wanted very much, but never bought due to the high price. Now they were at forty percent discount. So, I received my first parcel by courier. It reminded me of when I was a child and ordered toys from Jack Lemkus in Cape Town. It was delivered to our post office. “Look,” I said to my wife, “there is nothing new in the world.”

The author of Ecclesiastes actually meant something completely different. This book is one of the youngest in the Old Testament and was probably written as late as 300 B.C. It was a time when the Jewish people were very much under the influence of the Greek culture and spirit, and tried to keep the Jewish faith pure as it was in the time of the patriarchs.

The philosopher was wrestling with the vital questions of life and especially those about faith. In the quest for the meaning of life, he sometimes became so dejected that he felt everything was just as it was in the past, literally “nothing new in the whole world”. When one reads the whole book, you find that after his wrestling with these questions, he concluded: “After all this, there is only one thing to say: have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that human beings were created for” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). This word gives meaning to life and gives me the courage to face a new year.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we give thanks to you for making this life meaningful. Make us grateful for this new year in which we can live a very meaningful life. Amen