Please read “E1. Meaning to the Meaningless” before reading any of my other articles on Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes 9:1-10
Discovering a mass grave almost always reveals evil. Down through the centuries evil men have sought to hide the evidence of their cruelty and barbarism in mass graves. People are still discovering mass graves from WWII. Terrorists and rebels are still digging mass graves around the world. The evil of humanity can be overwhelming. There are hearts that have ceased to reflect any of the Image of God. Their hearts are so black with hate and evil that they are incapable of reflecting anything good. They simply radiate outward the blackness within.

The writer of Ecclesiastes believes he has discovered a mass grave. It is the planet earth, and God has created it. He has already discovered that good and evil are not rewarded and punished by God, as they should be. Now he turns his thoughts to the reality that all men “the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not” share a common destiny. They all die, and they all go to the grave. He believes that this is the ultimate evil, among all the evil, that happens under the sun. God has created a mass grave, and is filling it with humanity. He cannot find any reason to believe that death is not the end of everything. He has no hope in life after death, and he has no belief in the goodness of God.

He is partially right; the light of the sun reveals earth to be one huge graveyard. However, under the light of His Son Jesus, God reveals a new truth. Before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” When his father resurrected Jesus, the power of the grave was broken. Mass graves still reveal humanities’ wickedness, but the empty tomb reveals God’s goodness.