Haggai
Imagine yourself returning to land of your forbearers after seventy years in exile. Though you were being sent “home,” it was a home you’d only heard about or faintly remembered. Returning to the Promised Land was fraught with fearful things. There were no wall cities, no safe places. Jerusalem itself was all-less and temple-less, but the returnees had other fish to fry. And so, even though Darius had sent them home from exile, they drug their feet in rebuilding the House of the Lord.
Enter Haggai, the prophet.
Haggai was God’s instrument for waking God’s people from their lethargy and laziness. “You say it’s not time to build God’s house, yet you had plenty of time to build yourselves paneled houses!” Haggai cries. “If you don’t put God first, you’ll suffer!”
This got the people going. Under the direction of Zerubbabel, the High Priest, the work began. But Zerubbabel’s temple was not to be the grand thing that Solomon’s was, and the people knew it. Haggai asks, “Does it seem to you as nothing? (2:3) Perhaps so, but Haggai goes on to prophesy a future presence that will make the glory of this smaller building greater than Solomon’s great temple (2:9)
As you read Haggai, find yourself encouraged to do the work to which Christ has called us! Tomorrow, we begin another prophet of the returning exiles, Zechariah!
Your fellow pilgrim through the prophets,
Pastor Gary
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