Haggai 2

Verse 1-9: 

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God had called his people to put him first.  He had challenged them about the fact that they were enjoying their own panelled houses while the Lords' house stood in ruins. Within a mater of three weeks, the people had responded and started to tackle the challenge.  The first tasks would be pretty disheartening labouring jobs – clearing rubble, salvaging materials that could be re-used, checking what parts of the structure were safe and maybe demolishing any that were going to fall down anyway.  Arranging teams of volunteers.  And all without cranes, diggers, laptops or even hard hats!

So after a month, there would not be much visible progress. Add to that, the fact that the seventh month would be filled with “frustrating hold-ups” due to three festivals taking place.

• On the first of the month, the “Feast of Trumpets, a day when God's people were called to remember God; this was a  day of rest.  No work would be done.  (Lev 23. 24; Num 29. 1)
• On the tenth of the month, the Day of Atonement, when the people made food offerings to the Lord, fasted, and – did no work!  (Lev 23. 26-31)
• on the fifteenth of the month, the Feast of tabernacles (shelters) began. Every household made a shelter and camped out in it for  a week. The first and last days were sacred assemblies – no work!  And each day there were sacrifices to the Lord (Lev 23. 33-36)

Does God look bothered by all that?  Not at all! 

But some of the people were bothered.  They had held these festivals – but the temple, were the sacrifices should have taken place – wasn't in a fit state.  It brought it all home, just how bad things were.  You know, God had already said “I am with you!”  But I am guessing that some of them didn't feel his presence.  “We are exhausted. We have had to stop and do these festivals.  And now that we have been in and had a proper look at the situation – we realise how bad it really is.  And not only that, when Solomon built the temple, Israel was  a wealthy and powerful nation.  Solomon had the money to pay foreign craftsmen, and to cover the whole interior of his temple with gold.  We are broke.  We won't be able to do that.   We can bust our guts on this project, but it isn't going to look anything like as splendid as is did seventy years ago when I were a lad!”   

So God speaks into that sense of despair:  “How many of you remember this house in its former glory?  Admit it, God says – it seems like nothing, doesn’t' it? (v. 3) 

God says “be strong”.  (cf Dt 31. 6f, Josh 1. 6)And he says “I am with you” (cf Mark 6. 50)  Not just Joshua and Zerubbabel but all the ordinary people!   God calls us all to work with him (not for him!) He is with us and his Spirit is present.

God says “just wait a wee while.  See what I am going to do!”   He will shake the nations, bring the desire of nations is; he owns all the – gold! Like an earthquake, God will act to shake things up.  That is what happened: eventually the people from neighbouring lands who were campaigning against rebuilding the temple, were told to pay their tax money, direct to Judah for rebuilding the temple.  (You can read about it in  Ezra 6. 8-12!)   The glory of the new will be greater than the glory of the old.  Wahey!  But that is an echatological (end-time) promise.  This new temple would eventually have Jesus in it!  How good is that! 

Verses 10-19

Image: Edal Anton Lefterov Creative Commons SA3

 

Two months later, in the December, and the  work on the temple had slowly continued.  Possibly people had got discouraged again. The autumn is rainy in the south eastern Mediterranean,  Not the best weather for clearing rubble out of a collapsed building.  And after the rain, the crops had been planted for next year.  So the work had been fitted around other planting for  next year's harvest – if there was a harvest!  They had seen a few bad years and there was nothing in their barns! 

Haggai takes the people back to his first prophecy in chapter 1, skilfully using question-and-answer teaching.  He doesn't need to find out the answers to his questions: they are obvious, but he still asks the Priests for  their opinion on the law.
Consecration isn’t transferable but impurity is. God's people had been called by him and declared holy – but they had disobeyed, put themselves first and so had all become “defiled”.  The ruined Temple stood in the middle of the city like a  dead body, a stark and visible reminder of the sin that had caused Judah to be taken in to exile. Now if even their temple, the place where they would offer sacrifices to get right with God, was defiled, how could they possibly get right with God.  Not much grounds for hope.  What Haggai is doing is reminding the people of where they had been before they started to work on the temple. “Consider how things were before.”   
But there is hope because there is grace! God responds promptly and generously to our repentance, when we have nothing else to offer Him. “‘From this day on I will bless you.’” (v. 10)  There can be a harvest – because there is grace!

Verses 20-23And finally.... A second reference to an eschatological shaking the heavens and the earth.  This time Zerubbabel will become a signet ring who stamps God's will on the world. God promises a restoration of what was lost when  Zerubbabel's Jechoiachin or Coniah, rejected by God because of his sin, was told, ‘even if you were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off.”  Judgement had happened.   Zerubbabel never was king – he was only a governor –  he is held in high esteem in Jewish history and in a  sense represents the King who as to come of David's line – Jesus!     

Haggai chapter 1, as Pam showed us last week, calls us to consider how we have fared, and make God our first priority.  Chapter 2 reaches out to us with encouragement and hope.  God is bringing a bigger future than Haggai could have imagined:  shaking the heavens and the earth, a more splendid temple, a day of grace, a promised King!   Haggai sees hope because he sees by faith a future where God's kingdom comes.   But it must have taken huge faith to say – when the nation was broke – God will shake the earth and the desire of nations will come in.  It must have taken huge faith to say “From this day on I will bless you.”

It's not a matter of sweet little words of hope and happy blessings for struggling little people.  Messiah is coming! The Kingdom is coming!   We are living in these end-times. Can we take these promises – “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.  In this place I will grant peace, from this day on I will bless you” – for ourselves today?  There are plenty of promises of judgement as well as blessing.  What grounds do we have for believing that the blessings, rather than the judgement, are "God's word for us today?"

Firstly, Haggai's promises were not just about his own time: they were about the coming of Messiah who would

bring the Kingdom of God and the grace of God.

Secondly, he comes to us with challenge and invitation. He still calls us to make him our first priority.  It is as we answer that call, that we can look to him for blessing - foretastes of the Kingdom - in our lives.

God is not interested in propping up our "empire of dirt".  God is not interested in propping up a Church that is busy with our own house – he's not interested in shoring up a building that is there so we can feel comfortably at home when we worship; he's not interested in keeping structures going so we can stay in our comfort zone – or even so we can say to other people – come over into my comfort-zone and meet Jesus!  He's not interested in keeping a church open where we can be buried – one at a time. Keeping the Church open might even prove to be another way of  simply being busy with our own houses.  God is interested in building a temple made without hands, a living body.  And as we commit to that, to building what God is building, then and only then does God say, “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.  In this place I will grant peace, from this day on I will bless you.”

© Gilmour Lilly August  2015