Friday, May 22, 2020![hamikdash21[1]](https://thenoontimes.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hamikdash211.jpg?w=300&h=207)
Haggai 2:15-19
Promise of Immediate Blessings
This is good news! Commentary tells us that we should read this citation along with Chapter 1: The Exhortation to Rebuild the Temple. After the destruction and capture and exile by the Babylonians, the Jewish people were finally allowed to return in groups to Judah, but they had a good deal of trouble in rebuilding their temple and themselves. We can read about this in Ezra and Nehemiah.
The Samaritans in the northern part of the former Jewish territory who had intermingled with non-Jews have become the enemies of Jews returning to their home in the southern region of Judah. These Samaritans now block the way home for the returning exiles. In a time of return from deportation when we might imagine a new joy rising from the hearts of the Israelites, it is instead corruption and idol worship that they experience. In a time when physical and emotional fatigue from the return journey sap the strength of God’s people, they are called to dig deep into their inner selves to find the energy to rebuild. Yet despite the energy they expend in their struggle to return to their Jerusalem home, the faithful find the wherewithal to rebuild. They rely on their custom of maintaining contact with Yahweh through exile. They are an exhausted people who return from the north and yet here the prophet Haggai entreats the people to rebuild what was lost and he promises that there will be immediate joy. We might feel tired just thinking of the turmoil, disappointment and suffering they experience. We also might feel their hope, animation and sense of fulfillment.
This is a story that inspires.
Some of this prophecy (in particular the portion of chapter 2 just before today’s reading) takes the form of a “torah” or instruction given by a priest and so it carries particular significance. We are reminded that we are nothing if not first thought and then created by God. We are exhorted to re-build the old temple and to rebuild ourselves. We are reminded that God will fill us with the persistence and fortitude to answer this call. We are told that there is one to come who will shepherd his sheep in their return to an old home in a new spirit.
As we near the end of this Eastertide in the midst of pandemic, we have journeyed for two months of celebration in the most unusual of ways. We experience both the death of a hope and the birth of a new way of living, and throughout these weeks, we have always had the intimate presence of the resurrected Christ who arrives as fulfillment of all the prophets have predicted. Jesus is the new temple, and we are the building blocks. He is the promise, and we are the beneficiaries. He is the blessing, and we are the blessed. As we return from our own personal exiles, may we live up to this promise. And so we pray . . .
Dear and gracious Lord, you have called us back from our time of exile. You have offered us transformation and new life. You have filled us with new energy and new strength. May we live up to the potential we embody. May we learn to be true, living stones in your temple. And may we experience the joy of your immediate blessing. Amen.
Adapted from a Noontime first written on May 17, 2007.
Image from http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/rebuilding-the-temple-in-jerusalem
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