Eternal Rock Kicker

One of my favorite Greek myths is the story of Sisyphus. A man condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a mountain. Only for it to roll back down every time he reaches the summit. An eternal rock kicker. The punishment is not simply painful, it’s repetitive and apparent meaningless torment.

Albert Camus looks at the myth of Sisyphus and turns it into picture of the human condition.

We work.

We love.

We build.

We lose.

We do it over and over again.

We eventually die.

He says the universe gives us no guarantee for an explanation for any of this. Noting the human desire for meaning and the world’s silence. Camus labels that confrontation “the absurd.”

Camus’s conclusion, “one must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Camus isn’t saying Sisyphus’s labor should be looked at as meaningful. Rather, Sisyphus refuses to let the meaningless of his punishment destroy his capacity to live. Sisyphus owns his existence instead of wanting for the universe to explain it to him.

I do believe there is some decent application with that thought into our lives. Embrace the boulder. Embrace the mountain. And do the task that life has put before you.

But ultimately, I think it falls short.

One of my favorite books in the Bible is the book of Ecclesiastes. I’ve always pictured Sisyphus in my mind when I read Ecclesiastes. And on the surface, I can hear Dwight Schrute saying “I don’t know, the days are short, maybe I’m just tired…or depressed.” Anyways, early in the book the Teacher in Ecclesiastes repeatedly says “Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.”

Vanity here is the Hebrew word “hebel,” its breath, vapor, mist. Meaning something elusive, fleeting, near impossible to grasp. The Teacher is looking at humans saying:

You work, and someone else inherits your work.

You acquire wisdom, but you still die.

You build something, but time eventually erases it.

You pursue pleasure, but pleasure cannot permanently satisfy.

You work hard, but you cannot control what happens afterward.

You are born.

You labor.

You eat.

You sleep.

You love.

You lose.

That life gives us this feeling of continuously pushing a boulder up a mountain. Only to do it again and again.

Ecclesiastes does not deny how absurd our existence is. At first glance reading “all is vanity,” seems to say “nothing matters.” But rather, receive that which you have been given.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 says, “Nothing is better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.”

But our toil. Our boulder pushing. It’s not for ourselves. Not in the long run. Not when eternity is at stake.

Chapter 12 starts off with, “Remember your Creator.” And later states, “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

Where Camus says the world does not provide guaranteed meaning. The Word says humans cannot fully comprehend God’s purpose, that is why faith ought to be a foundation for us. Being okay with not knowing.

Truthfully, we don’t have to know why something happened to remain faithful. We don’t need to turn every tragedy into a lesson or disappointment into a stepping stone. Sometimes suffering remains painful and mysterious.

Camus sees no universal explanation for suffering. Scripture does not promise that we will understand ours, either. But it tells us that suffering is not beyond God's sovereignty. He can use it to produce perseverance, refine our character, and draw us nearer to Him. Even when we cannot see what He is doing, we can trust who He is.

Camus says to live life to the fullest. The Word says to receive life from the Lord, die to yourself everyday, seek Jesus in all that you do.

Camus says the boulder will come back down. Don’t quit, push it anyways. Ecclesiastes admits the boulder comes back down. We are never promised any control with the mountain. So push the boulder with full faith and receive the life the Lord has for you.

Camus’s Sisyphus finds a form of freedom by recognizing his fate and refusing to be defeated by it. His rebellion is an assertion of human dignity in a universe that offers no ultimate answers.

But there may be an interpretation that he can push the boulder without knowing the outcome because his faith rests in something beyond himself. That the simple act of pushing on its own is what makes Sisyphus free.

One is an act of defiance against an indifferent universe. The other is an act of trust in a sovereign God.

Now, it is not lost on me that the original myth is a story of a man who repeatedly defied the gods, even attempting to outwit death itself. His punishment was to spend eternity pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to watch it roll back down. There is an irony in that story. Sisyphus spent his life attempting to escape the limitations imposed upon him, only to receive a punishment defined by those very limitations.

Camus takes this condemned man and finds a different kind of freedom in him. Similarly to Camus, I am taking the myth in a different direction. In that the Christian response does not rest on defying the divine or accepting an inescapable fate. It begins with surrendering to the God who offers something beyond death.

If you think you can outsmart and trick the divine, I won’t stop you. But I’d strongly advise against it.

Camus offers a kind of freedom in accepting that the boulder will always come back down. He doesn't promise that everything happens for a reason or that the mountain will eventually lead somewhere. He asks us to live fully despite that uncertainty. But I find myself asking whether accepting the absurd is enough. Is it sufficient to find freedom in the struggle when the struggle itself has no ultimate destination? Can we truly find peace in accepting that our suffering may never mean anything beyond what we make of it?

Ecclesiastes is much more radical in admitting that we may never know the reason. This life, the boulder, the mountain, the reason is vanity, elusive, as if we were pursuing the wind. But it also looks at the limits of wisdom, the injustice of this world, the inevitability of death, and the exhausting efforts we go through to try to secure lasting gain.

The Teacher repeatedly investigates whether wisdom, pleasure, wealth, achievement, or hard work can provide lasting fulfillment. His conclusion is not that these things are worthless. Rather, none can provide the permanence or control that human beings so desperately seek.

The boulder represents our desire to make something permanent out of an impermanent existence. We want our work to last, our relationships to endure, our achievements to mean something, and our suffering to have an explanation.

I’m not saying those things are bad. I’ve written about it before, Ecclesiastes 3 says our longing for eternity, for things to last, is in our hearts, a part of our human condition. The problem arises when we attempt to satisfy that eternal longing through temporary things.

We have very little control over any of those things. Ecclesiastes confronts that desire and redirects us to receiving life as a gift.

Ecclesiastes 3 says:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

The mountain is not the purpose. This world we live in is broken by sin and our flesh continually tempts us to seek permanence in things it cannot provide. Sin will continually creep into our lives and do what it can to shackle us to the mountain, to the curse.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

Our labor is still subject to the fleeting nature of this world. Even the most faithful among us will experience loss, disappointment, and death. But Paul offers a promise that Ecclesiastes alone does not fully articulate: our labor in the Lord is not in vain. What we cannot preserve through our own strength, God can redeem. What we cannot see from our limited perspective, He holds within His eternal purpose.

There is something profound about continuing to push the boulder when you don’t know whether you’ll ever see the summit.

Not because the boulder itself is your salvation.

Not because you can guarantee success.

Not because persistence magically creates meaning.

But because faithfulness does not require certainty about the outcome.

Abraham goes without knowing where he is going.

Moses walks toward a land he will never enter.

David is anointed king and then spends years running for his life.

Job never receives the kind of explanation he wanted.

Jesus goes to the cross knowing what obedience will cost Him.

And the resurrection changes the meaning of it all.

It even frees us from the eternal punishment of keeping our hands on the boulder or the mountain itself. It allows us to seek what the Lord has laid before us and trust Him with what comes from obedience.

Without the resurrection, there is nothing. If death has the final say, even the most faithful person would be subject to the same final disappearance that troubles the Teacher in Ecclesiastes. But death does not have the final say. Christ defeated it.

Our hope is not simply that the Lord will help us cope with this absurd existence. It’s that the Lord has acted in history, defeated death, and promised a future where our labor in Him is not in vain.

Revelation 21:4 speaks to this saying, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Camus's Sisyphus must find freedom in accepting the endless repetition.

Ecclesiastes teaches us to receive the fleetingness of life from the hand of the Lord.

Christ tells us that the apparent futility of the boulder does not have the final word.

The boulder may roll back down.

You may lose. You may relapse into sin. The thing you've spent years building may disappear. You may climb the same mountain again and again and wonder whether any of it mattered.

And Ecclesiastes reminds us not to demand from this life what this life cannot give us.

Do today's work. Love the people in front of you. Eat the meal. Watch the sunset. Pray. Abide in the Word. Laugh. Grieve.

And when the Lord calls you to climb, keep your hands on the boulder.

Trust that He sees farther than you do.

The Christian response to Sisyphus is not that the mountain doesn't matter.

It's that you don't need to know where the mountain ends in order to be faithful on the climb.