The Great Resignation
Have you heard of the so-called GREAT RESIGNATION? In Europe and the USA many people are choosing not to return to their pre-Covid employment situations. Some cite frustration with overbearing bosses, and abusive workplace conditions. Others, a sense of meaninglessness having reflected during lockdowns on the hard labour they gave for someone else’s gain.
One interviewee said recently, “Life is more than working for a few dollars in cold, heartless workplaces for someone else’s profit.” (remember that most of the world’s poorest labourers have no such relative freedom as to choose to leave their jobs.) Such words must send chills through the captains of industry who hope to see company profits rise again.
The pandemic has pressed a hidden reset button in many lives, leaving:
- a latent frustration and anxiety that just won’t dissipate,
- or a gnawing dis-ease about society’s wrongs and dysfunctions producing a deep yearning for something better; a return to “normal” isnot enough!
REFLECT: Do either of the above resemble your feelings at times? Have you felt a sense of futility or purposelessness, hoping for something more than this? (I’m referring only to momentary and occasional experiences of existential anxiety. If you experience recurring feelings of emptiness or despair please do seek help from appropriate medical and psychological professionals.)
A Solution to Feelings of Futility
The ancient people of God often expressed existential angst. For example, Malachi 3:14-15 caricatures Israel as saying:
“It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out [the LORD’s] requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?
But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.”
In another example, the Psalmist asks God,
“Remember how fleeting is my life. For what futility you have created all humanity! Who can live and not see death, or who can escape the power of the grave?” (Ps. 89:47,48).
And, Solomon aptly described life’s search for wisdom and meaning as like catching vapor in one’s hands (Eccles. 1:14).
In the New Testament, the rich young ruler depicted in The Gospel of Luke chapter 18 reminds us that feelings of futility can weigh down even the best among us. Jesus gently responded to the searching question from this high achiever, telling him that God’s “eternal life” is not a reward for personal piety, moral merit, or accumulated wealth. At this news, verse 23 tells us, the rich young ruler “became very sad…” (vs 23).
Many in history, like those biblical characters, have questioned the meaning and purpose of life. Great authors of the past like Chekhov, Kafka, Sartre, Camus, and Virginia Woolf captured what Philosopher Terry Eagleton calls “the persistent need for meaning and the gnawing sense of its elusiveness.”( In ‘Being and Time’, Martin Heidegger states: “Our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of
the meaning of being” (Being and Time, Tr. Macquarie, Robinson, 1962, p19)) German Philosopher Martin Heidegger even suggested that putting our existence to the question is what distinguishes humans from every other living thing.6
Some though, like author Thomas Nagal, (In his book What does it all mean?) ask why we torture ourselves with such questions. Others, such as Douglas Adams and Monty Python, make light of the absurdities of human existential anxieties. (For example, the number 42 is offered as the answer to the “ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” in Douglas Adams’s satirical 1979 novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life takes a satirical jab at the whole ordeal! ) Nagal pleads: if “the grave is (life’s only goal) …it’s ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously… it should be enough to simply take life as it comes and enjoy it as much as we can.” Such an attitude is easy for the wealthy and privileged to take on, but not so for the poor.
But recent research shows that 75% of people around the globe do often ask if there is more to life than this. Readers of the bible should not be surprised at this. Books such as Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Job have universal appeal because they mirror back to us feelings of futility common to humanity.
Viktor Frankl, a prison of war in concentration camps during WW2, observed that those who survived the ordeal of the camps were most often those who had a sense of purpose beyond themselves.
What purpose and meaning does the cross of Christ offer to you and me?
- Firstly, the cross shows that God truly understands our existential anxieties. God was in Christ upon the cross and experienced the futility, frustration, and meaninglessness of life to full measure. (Cor 5:19 says, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” while the emptiness and frustration experienced is symbolized by Christ’s cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” (Matt. 27:46))
- Secondly, the cross presents a profound paradox,
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The most futile death in history (innocent man crucified by powerful empire) |
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the most purposeful death in history (Jesus’ sacrifice defeated evil and even death itself). |
The Letter to the Ephesians describes the transition from futility to fruitfulness of life thanks to the cross of Christ:
- Those who once did not know Christ are described as “…without hope and without God in the world…” (Eph. 2:12) – fertile ground for feelings of futility.
- Those who put their trust in Christ are those to whom God has “…made known …the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure…” – receiving in the Gospel
As a result, they are now “…included in Christ” and “…marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit…” The cross of Christ offers more than mere intellectual comfort as the very presence and help of God is “poured into our hearts” and is a “deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” still to come (Eph. 1:13,14).
The cross, then, offers new meaning, identity, hope, and purpose that wonderfully displaces meaninglessness, insignificance, and hope-less-ness. The cross of Christ offers an end to futility, and the beginning of fruitfulness.
REFLECT: Take a few moments to read Ephesians chapters 1 and 2 and list the many positive benefits promised to those who trust in Christ. Take time to recognise how such promises address your deepest needs. Give thanks to God.
A Solution to Futile Ways of Living
The cross of Christ not only fills the void identified by our deep existential questions, it offers an escape from futile ways of living. Ephesians chapter 4 urges Christians to reject selfish, reckless living that often accompanies hopelessness, saying:
“…you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” (Ephesians 4:17-18)
These words parallel Paul’s judgment upon abusive lifestyles in the 1st Century (see Romans 1:21-25). Rather than a blanket statement about all “Gentiles”, scholars such as Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keezmat suggest that it’s the Roman imperial society that is in view. Hellenistic society among the rich and powerful featured a flagrant disregard for the “lower” classes and the reckless pursuit of self-pleasure and power at the expense of the poor. Such lifestyles are the end result of a truly “futile” mindset.
In the light of the cross of Christ, the Bible promises a new way of living.
Ephesians 4:22-24 says:
“…put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Colossians chapter 3 speaks of a “new self” made in the “image of its Creator”, and 2 Corinthians 5 speaks of a “new creation” at work in those who trust in Christ. In this new fruitful way of living, with the help of God’s Spirit, people are regarded with equal dignity, and love, mercy, justice, and humility are the resultant benefits.
More than just a change of thinking, the cross of Christ leads us to a truly purposeful life – moving from futility to fruitfulness.
REFLECT – Take pause to assess your own sense of purposefulness. What or who gives you a sense of value, and a life-direction, hope and purpose?
Many Christians down the ages have given testimony, to a change from frustration and futility to a life of meaning and fruitfulness upon coming to know Jesus as Saviour and Lord.
For example, Martin Luther, the 16th Century European reformer, had lived a life of turmoil, frustrated with his own iniquity and hard-heartedness. But as he pondered Paul’s Letter to the Romans for the first time, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus dawned on him, and his empty heart was filled. He wrote:
"The righteousness that we need to stand before the holy God is not a righteousness we can attain by our own effort. In fact, it is not human righteousness at all. It is divine righteousness, and it becomes ours due to God’s free grace. Our part is merely to receive it by faith, and to live by faith in God’s promise."
His existential emptiness was filled through knowing Christ and living for Him. In a more contemporary example, I know of man named Ammon who migrated to Australia from the Middle East. He had been raised as a Muslim, but multiple losses of loved ones, violence and poverty at the hands of ISIS resulted in him losing hope and losing faith in God. On coming to Australia, Ammon met some Arabic-speaking Christians while he was doing some “handyman” work on their church property. As he watched them, he was curious how people just like him could display joy and live with hope and purpose after all that had taken place. He asked them what had made the difference. Ammon discovered that death and meaninglessness could be exchanged for hope and purposefulness through faith in Jesus. Ammon joined their congregation.
The Biblical testimony of the Apostle Paul about the cross of Christ reflects a similar transition from futility to fruitfulness. (Philippians 3:7-11) Paul found that his preaching was “foolishness to those who are perishing” but to those “being saved” (those who knew Christ was God among us) his message was the “power of God”. (1 Cor 1:18)
REFLECT – Take a moment to analyse the messaging your church offers to the world. What “wisdom” is presented in its sermons and social media posts? Is there real hope, a new sense of identity and meaning?
Conclusion
Paul believed that attempts to “figure out life” fall short if they are merely focussed on one’s “self.” He wrote:
“…obsession with self… is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.” (Rom. 8:6 The Message)
Instead, as Ephesians 1 states:
“It is in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, Christ had… designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose God is working out in everything and everyone.” (Eph 1:11 The Message).
If our hope is firmly grounded in the wisdom of the cross of Christ, our lives will move increasingly from futility to fruitfulness.
Steve Webster , Vicar St Michaels North Carlton 2021
