Psalm 132:1-10 Haggai 2:1-9 Luke 2:36-40
Greater Glory
Rebuilding any kind of ruin is always a difficult task regardless of whether it is the rebuilding of a war-ravaged country, rebuilding a damaged building, or rebuilding the lives of people who have been shattered by some or other traumatic event. There are always so many factors to consider as one proceeds. Such as, realistically assessing the extent of the damage, clearing the rubble, testing the remaining structures for soundness, deciding on what remains and what must be removed for the sake of safety, deciding whether to rebuild in the same old style or to build something radically different, and then drawing up new plans etc. All these factors apply to the process of rebuilding, whether that rebuilding be physical, emotional, or spiritual.
The word of the Lord recorded in our Old Testament lesson came approximately one month after the difficult task of restarting the rebuilding process of the ruined temple. Extensive renovations had already been made on the city of Jerusalem during dangerous and difficult times. The endurance level of even the most enthusiastic had no doubt been taxed to the limit, and the need for some encouragement was great.
During the seventh month, the time when the prophet received this word from the Lord, progress had been delayed by the major feasts and sabbaths on which no work was allowed to be done. The first day of that month was the Feast of Trumpets, the tenth day the Day of Atonement, and on the fifteenth day the Feast of Tabernacles started during which the entire population moved out of their homes and into makeshift leafy shelters as a reminder of their Exodus wanderings. It was also a time when the people celebrated the harvest, giving thanks to God for his bountiful provision. As such, this was a time for reflection as well as rejoicing, but it was also a time of delay, and one can only imagine how the patience of those who wanted to move forward was being tested.
On the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles, twenty-one days later, Haggai the prophet was instructed by God to speak encouraging words to the governor and the high priest as well as the small group of returnees. Those who remembered the previous temple of Solomon before its destruction by the Babylonian forces, more than likely often spoke of its former beauty and grandeur, perhaps even offering unwanted pessimistic comments of how impossible it would be to recapture that past glory. Those were the post-glory days…
All too often disappointments in the past cast a shadow of doubt over present and future hope…and, in this case, there were many reasons to be negative. It didn’t take much to make an unfavourable comparison between their past and their present. Solomon’s kingdom had been one of the wealthiest at the time, but all that had changed. These few returnees from exile in Babylon did not have those kinds of resources available, other than what had been given to them when they left their place of captivity. They couldn’t pay skilled contractors or import luxury goods or duplicate the costly furnishings and accessories.
If anything was to be done, they had to do it themselves with the little they had at their disposal. The delays, the lack of skilled labour, the lack of adequate funds, tools, and resources, as well as the nagging negative comparisons had begun to erode their incentive to persevere. One can only imagine what kinds of conversations took place.
As the younger generation skimped and saved simply to get by, the impoverished older generation looked on and said: “Do you call that a Temple? That’s not a Temple. This,” at which point they pulled out a BC equivalent of polaroid photographs of Solomon’s Temple, “This is a Temple.”
“Look,” fumed a frustrated and fatigued farmer acting as a stonemason, “I’ve been working my hand raw on making stones for this building. If you can do better, be my guest. I can’t help it if we have no funds, no proper tools, and a limited work force. I’m doing the best I can.”
The older generation sighed and shed a few tears as they remembered the good old days. “Ah, the gold of the Temple shone like the sun. Ah, the carvings and the curtains and the vestments and…” Well, I’m sure you’ve got the picture.
Enter Haggai the Prophet. Turning first to the older folk he said, “Who is left among you who saw this Temple in its former glory?” A few gnarled hands were raised. “And how do you see it now?” Quivering lips opened and shut without making a sound. “In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?”
“Now, wait a cotton-picking minute, Haggai, that’s not very encouraging,” the sweating farmer acting as a stonemason starts to say, but before he can utter another syllable, Haggai booms out enthusiastically. “Yet now be strong…and work! I am with you,” says the Lord of Hosts. Now, if this were a movie, a rising swell of dramatic orchestral music would be growing stronger as Haggai begins to pace up and down. Or if Netflix was involved, he would be on horseback galloping back and forth before a mass of cheering people as the camera-drone whirls around him in ever-widening circles. Prophetic theatre even Joel Osteen couldn’t beat.
“Be strong,” was a command repeated many times during Israel’s chequered history, but in this particular case, the words evoked images of the Exodus and the Conquest. “I am with you…according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not!” There is a striking resemblance between these words and those spoken by Jesus in Mark 6:50 as he walked towards the terrified disciples on the Sea of Galilee. “Take heart;” he said. “It is I. Do not be afraid.” Also, his final words spoken prior to his ascension: “Make disciples of all nations wherever you go – I am with you, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) You see, the personal presence of the Lord himself, bolsters courage and rekindles determination as we realise that the Almighty Creator, by whose will all things exist and continues to exist, is not only with us, but he is also well able to bring to completion whatever he has begun.
The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians and the ensuing 60-70 years of exile was fertile soil for seeds of doubt and despair. But here through the words of the prophet Haggai, the Lord reaffirmed his faithfulness to the very same covenant he had made with them when he delivered them from bondage in Egypt. As he was with them then, he was with them now. His cause would not fail despite their faults, their failures, and their frailty.
“Yet once more,” said the Lord, “in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory...” The image of the convulsing of the universe is a common one in the prophets usually indicating political upheaval and the collapse of principal powers or even empires…NOT to be taken literally, if you please, as others have done in the not-so-distant past.
But while it is difficult to say what Haggai would have thought about as he spoke these words, if we compare Scripture with Scripture, the Lord was more than likely referring to the coming of the one who would shatter human kingdoms to set up an eternal kingdom that would fill the whole earth (Daniel 2:37-45; 7:13-20), through which all the nations of the earth would be blessed in keeping with the promise God had made to Abraham concerning his descendants (Genesis 12:1-3).
At that time, the treasures of the incoming Gentile nations would serve to beautify a non-geographical, spiritual, and heavenly Temple until it becomes a spectacular edifice filled with a splendour far greater than anything Haggai or his listeners would have been able to comprehend. God is never short on funds because he is the owner of all things. The silver and gold is his and he will dispense with what is his whenever and to whomever he sees fit.
Which reminds me of the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye is discussing wealth and poverty with Perchik, the man who would later become his son-in-law. “Money is the world’s curse,” Perchik says. To which Tevye responds, “May the Lord smite me with it! And may I never recover!”
Be that as it may, it is interesting to note that shortly after Haggai spoke these words, his prophecy was, in fact, partially fulfilled in a way few would have thought possible. According to Ezra 6:8-12, those who had initially opposed the rebuilding of the Temple and who had tried unsuccessfully to bring the work to a halt, were ordered by the Persian monarch to not only desist in their attempt to stall the labour, but to also cover the cost of the builders in full and without delay from the royal revenue. And whatever was needed was to be supplied…bulls, rams, sheep, wheat, salt, wine, or oil. And then, later Herod, the unpopular Edomite King of the Jews, built a Temple that quite literally surpassed the glory of the Temple of Solomon.
Yet I believe this prophecy was primarily fulfilled in the coming of one greater than the Temple (Matthew 12:6) who supplanted it (John 2:13-22). At that time the promise of peace was fulfilled outside the walls of the city of peace by the Prince of Peace himself, and that peace was taken into the whole world by the Israel of God, restored and rebuilt with the old (the Jews) and the new (the Gentiles) through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The prophecies of Ezekiel foretold that healing waters would flow from the threshold of the renewed Temple (Ezekiel 47:1). Jesus said that out of him would flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). It is little wonder then that John described the establishment of God’s reign over all the earth in terms of a River flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the midst of the Tree of Life whose leaves bring healing to the nations (Revelation 21:22; 22:1ff).
Ultimately, the prophecy of Haggai, although fulfilled temporally and temporarily at the time of the Restoration and later under Herod, the prophecy of Haggai was primarily and finally fulfilled in the Word made flesh who came to Tabernacle among us (John 1:14) and whose glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, was seen by all who beheld him then and all who behold him now, crowned with glory and honour and seated at the right hand of God. As the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16; 3:28-29; Romans 9:6-8) and as the New Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22-24), the Church is filled with the glory of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb radiating from the New Temple (Revelation 21:22).
Haggai’s stirring prophetic words were intended to empower and galvanise a demoralised people into completing a project that seemed impossible. His call was for a renewed focus on the one who was with them just as he had been with their forefathers when they had faced the impossible. This was a call for renewed faith in the Lord, renewed holiness of life, renewed courage, and a renewed vision. They were not to despise the day of small beginnings, but to press on, ever anticipating God’s timely intervention.
I don’t think I need to remind you of the sad state of the Church in North Holland. Like the remnant in Haggai’s day, we too may be tempted to despair when we look at what the Church had been just a few generations ago. We too may shed tears with the older folk who remember the glory of those days or sigh with the younger folk who struggle to rebuild against all odds. But the same God who was with them is with us and he speaks the same words now as he did then. “Yet now be strong…and work! I am with you,” says the Lord of Hosts. “Do not fear, for my Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025