Summary: The writer of Ecclesiastes might puzzle over us as we ring in the New Year with enthusiasm and festivity.  For him, the passage of time was something to be lamented rather than celebrated.  He found it oppressive. Ecclesiastes 12 is a tragic poem filled with gloomy metaphors for growing old and dying culminating in that famous exclamation, “Vanity of vanities…all is vanity.”  It’s a passage that testifies to something the elderly among us already know, and the youthful among us would be wise to learn: the latter years of life are decidedly not “the golden years.”  But is it all as hopeless as Ecclesiastes makes it sound?  Ecclesiastes’ unique role in scripture is that it shows us how badly we need the rest of the Bible.  The hopelessness of Ecclesiastes is meant to show us our desperate need for a hope beyond this life “under the sun.”  Ecclesiastes helps ensure that, as we welcome the New Year, we don’t make the tragic mistake of putting too much hope in it, but that we continue to place all of our hope in the day of Christ’s return.  That is a hope that cannot disappoint us in life or in death.