Haggai 2:3-9

“Rebuilding Year”

Today’s scripture reading comes from the Book of the Prophet Haggai. Haggai is one of the twelve minor prophets or smaller prophets found in the Bible. Now Haggai doesn’t come around all that often in the lectionary cycle, so let’s approach this passage together with new eyes. Here’s the story: Haggai was writing in the post-exilic period after many Israelites had been held captive by the powerful Babylonian Empire for seventy years. The Book of Haggai is one of the shortest books of the Bible, only 37 verses in total, but it gives insight into the struggle of returning home and learning to trust God again after the trauma of separation from the land.

 

Around 587 BC, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar led the siege of Jerusalem.  His army destroyed the first temple that Solomon had built as the holy dwelling place of God. The temple was the center of religious life for the Jewish people. There, the priests offered sacrifices and the people offered prayers and tithes. The destruction of the temple was an unthinkable act of religious violence.

 

So the Babylonian exile wasn’t only a period of physical alienation; it was also a period of spiritual alienation. The people of God had to discover new ways to worship God in a foreign land. Many people struggled to make theological sense of what had happened. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” the Psalmist writes.

 

As each new generation was born in exile, Jerusalem became more and more of a memory. The older generations regaled their children with stories of a grand temple: impressive in size, well-attended by the people, and led by capable leaders. It was a place where you just knew God would be with you. If you had doubt anywhere, you could return to this place and know that God is the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

 

I wonder if some of us have known holy places like this?

 

This generation was older now. They had been young adults and children when they were forced from their homes. Their children simply couldn’t understand the former glory.

 

What’s interesting to me is that the Book of Haggai doesn’t tell us which generation the prophet belongs to. Some traditions hold that he was in his seventies, that the memory of the former glory of the temple was a personal recollection, even as the memory of a child. Others believe Haggai was younger, being born in exile and carrying the hope of his parents and grandparents. Perhaps it is a gift that we don’t know. This story presents an intergenerational struggle of shared trauma.

 

Many of us here can relate. We bear the emotional scars of our own struggles, the traumas of our parents, grandparents, and even nations. The pain of incarceration, war, genocide, exploitation, and racism. The silence between generations that communicates volumes. We can imagine that the return to Jerusalem meant something very different to the oldest generation and the youngest.

 

When the people returned to Jerusalem, there was a pile of ruins where the temple once stood. What a disappointing sight it must have been. Whether from shame or fear or faithlessness, the people set about building their own houses and ignored the rubble until the prophet urged them to build the temple again.

 

The people believed that they had been sent to exile because of their sin. Before the exile, the prophets warned of the coming destruction but promised that God would be faithful. Now God had brought them back. But more than the temple needed to be rebuilt. The community had been broken. The covenant had come into question. And the people’s faith in God was challenged.

 

Beginning the building process was a tremendous act of faith. Two men, Zerubbabel and Joshua, stepped up to lead the rebuilding effort. Zerubbabel’s name, which means “seed of Babylon” tells us that he was one of the younger generation, born in exile. Though he never saw the original temple, he was building the new temple, restoring the ruins.

 

And the passage we read today comes from a prophecy Haggai spoke when the construction of the second temple was underway. The people saw the size and materials of the temple and could only focus on what it was missing. Haggai acknowledges that there are not many left who can even remember for themselves the former glory of the temple. Yet their grief is shared by the community. Haggai asks “Does it not seem to you like nothing?”

 

Perhaps the “Make the Temple Great Again” faction couldn’t see what Zerubbabel’s generation was able to see. The Lord, the God of Israel had never abandoned the remnant of Israel. Haggai likens the return from Babylon to the arrival of the Israelites to the promised land after 40 years of wandering in the desert.

 

Haggai speaks God’s word to the people: “Keep working. God’s Spirit remains with you. ” God declares “I am with you. I was with you in the desert in a tabernacle. I was with you in Jerusalem in the temple. And, if you’ll believe it, I was even with you in exile in Babylon.” God doesn’t cease to be God when circumstances are difficult. Amen?

 

So the people got to work. This was a rebuilding year for the exile people. A time to process pain and struggle with their new identity as free people. A season of new opportunities and a reorientation to faith. Before any sacrifice was offered in the temple, before any prayers were spoken, the people responded to God’s grace with faith. Empowered and led by God’s Holy Spirit, they built the house that God was calling them to build.

 

And it wasn’t as grand as the first temple. And it didn’t last forever. But it was filled with great glory as God had promised. In this house, the man Simeon held the baby Jesus and proclaimed the glory of the Messiah, saying:

Sovereign Lord, as You have promised,

You now dismiss Your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen Your salvation,

which You have prepared in the sight of all people,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and for glory to Your people Israel.”

 

In this house, the twelve year old son of Mary sat at the feet of the teachers and spoke with wisdom beyond his years. In this house, Jesus flipped the tables of injustice and unfaithfulness. And in this house, the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom when Our crucified Saviour breathed His last breath and gave up his spirit. The heavens and the earth shook with resurrection power.

 

“The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.”

 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what house of worship are we building here? Will we allow God to shake our world? To release what is past and open ourselves to the presence of Christ in our lives? What new and amazing thing can God bring about here in this place?

 

God desires to dwell in the presence of God’s people. Holy Spirit, open our eyes. Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Amen.