How has God been trying to get through to me and I keep calling it ‘coincidence’?

Haggai 1:1-11

November 8, 2009

God’s city destroyed

It was the year 586 B.C.  The day long dreaded by the people of Jerusalem arrived.  Prophets had warned God’s people of the coming judgment, which was more than a military invasion and political expansion of the Babylonian empire.  God’s wrath was being poured out on his people for their idolatry and disobedience.

For thirty months, the Babylonian forces had surrounded Jerusalem with a siege, cutting off supply lines and starving the city.  Siege was a common tactic of ancient warfare against walled cities, sometimes requiring great persistence by the invading army.  If patience and intimidation didn’t work, the invaders would eventually batter the gates, tunnel under the walls, or climb over the fortress using ladders or ramps.  For residents inside the city, the pure terror of anticipating the inevitable must have been unbearable.  Add to that the crisis of starvation that led even to cannibalism, and you get the picture of life in Jerusalem leading up to the invasion.

King Zedekiah held out hope that Egypt would come to his aid (Jeremiah 37:6-8), but the help never arrived.  When the wall was breached on July 18, 586 B.C., the meager forces of defense, weakened by famine, were no match for the invaders.  The king and his army tried to sneak out of the city at night.  The Babylonian army pursued and caught them.  Zedekiah himself was forced to watch the execution of his sons.  Then his eyes were put out so that his sons’ death was the last image he would ever see.

Back in Jerusalem, the Babylonian soldiers killed everyone who resisted – man, woman, and child.  Those who took sanctuary in the temple were executed on site.  Other atrocities continued.  Pregnant women had their babies cut out and thrown down cliffs.  Most non-resisters were shackled and led out of the city.  Anything of value was gathered on to carts – especially utensils, tools, and vessels made of bronze, gold, and silver.  Even two bronze pillars 27’ high from the temple were carried off.  Smoke billowed as every major wooden structure was burned, including private homes, public buildings, and especially the temple.  Babylonian warriors then disassembled the stone framework of the temple and turned the rock wall into rock piles.

As for the survivors, a few slaves and commoners were allowed to remain behind and till the soil.  But all those of noble birth or having any kind of leadership role or potential were forced to march to Babylon for who-knows-what fate.  Some died along the way.  Others were killed for insubordination.  Some were retrained and brainwashed.  Eventually a community was settled along the Tigris River, far from their homeland and always under the watchful eye of the Babylonian military so they could not regroup and rebel.[1]  They wept and sang funeral dirges, like this one –

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
       when we remembered Zion.

 There on the poplars
       we hung our harps,

 for there our captors asked us for songs,
       our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
       they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
       while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
       may my right hand forget its skill .

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
       if I do not remember you,
       if I do not consider Jerusalem
       my highest joy.

 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
       on the day Jerusalem fell.
       “Tear it down,” they cried,
       “tear it down to its foundations!”

 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
       happy is he who repays you
       for what you have done to us-

 he who seizes your infants
       and dashes them against the rocks.

Thus ended the glory of Israel about four hundred years after its peak under King David and King Solomon.  It was over.

The exiles go home

A half-century later, Babylon itself fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia.  Within a year, Cyrus had instituted a policy very unlike that of Assyria and Babylon.  He wanted to appease the gods of his subject people, so he issued a decree that the Jews in his realm could return home to resettle and to rebuild their temple.   

According to Ezra, 50,000 of them took him up on his offer in 538 B.C. They brought with them more than 7,000 animals – horses, donkeys, mules, and camels.  Their carts were laden with 5,400 bowls and utensils made of gold and silver that had been plundered from the temple.   Their Babylonian neighbors were also instructed to give them gold, silver, and fine clothing. 

Imagine their excitement.  Children played, men sang, and women carried their young with new zeal and hope as they returned to the land of their fathers.

When they crested the hill and caught their first glimpse of Jerusalem, however, their hearts sank again.  Aside from a few nearby cultivated fields, the city was unchanged from July 18, 586 B.C.  Some streets had been cleared and a handful of smaller homes were inhabited.  But the walls were still rock piles, and giant weeds grew in the ashes and charcoal that had once been Solomon’s glorious temple and palace.

This would be home again, but it would be a long time before it felt like home.  The returning exiles set up tents and began the painstaking process of plowing overgrown fields, clearing rubble and rebuilding homes – a few thousand settlers in Jerusalem and the rest in nearby towns and villages.  Since it was the center of their community and also central to Cyrus’ decree, they began rebuilding the large stone footprint of their temple.  Cyrus also authorized importing cedar logs from Lebanon.

Zerubbabel, descended from Judah’s royal line, was named governor.  Joshua, who had lived in the Babylonian captivity, restored the high priesthood.  Within a few months, the altar was rebuilt.  Morning and evening sacrifices filled the air with the aroma of incense and the ashes from sacrifice.  Within a year, worship was back!  Crops yielded abundant harvests. 

The Jews were so successful and so enthusiastic that their neighbors felt threatened and used psychological intimidation against the Jews.  Their opposition succeeded.  Work on the temple came to a stop before it progressed much beyond the footprint.  At the same time, the region endured a drought and crops failed.  Without as much work to do in the fields, the people turned their attention and redirected their resources to enlarging and remodeling their private residences. 

Seventeen years passed.  Then Haggai showed up and said, “Think!”

How’s that working for you?

Let’s look at how Haggai opens his book.  Having named the date and identified himself and other key players in verse 1, Haggai turns to the message from God.  He calls God most commonly in his book, “the LORD Almighty.”  You hear this name for God in Martin Luther’s famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress,” in the line, “Lord Sabaoth his name.”  In Handel’s Messiah, it’s “The Lord of hosts.”  “Host” is a military term – a multitude of armed forces.  The Message paraphrase renders it, “God-of-the-Angel-Armies.”

Jesus used the concept if not the name when his disciples tried to take matters into their own hands on the night of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden.  Peter whips out a sword and whacks the head of an arresting soldier, missing badly and cropping off only an ear.  (It’s a good thing Jesus didn’t count on that rag-tag bunch for body guards.)  Jesus says, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53)  He is God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the LORD Almighty.  Whatever bad is happening to me, it’s certainly not because he is ineffective or unaware or out of control.

Haggai wants you to pay attention.  The commander-in-chief of the universe’s invisible and invincible forces is, himself, infinite in power.  He has something to say.

This is what he says (v. 2), “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.”  Odd, isn’t it, that this is all he says for his first prophetic utterance.  I imagine some time lapsed before he said anything else.  “God-of-the-Angel-Armies” is telling me you believe it’s not time to build yet.”  Pause.  Maybe a few seconds.  Maybe a few minutes.  Maybe a few hours or longer.

Why the pause?  To give them time to think.  Really?  How much time is needed.  You got the foundations rebuilt in a few months.  Then you had some opposition.  Now you’ve had some tough years.  You still think it’s not time.  When will it be time?

Then Haggai speaks again in v. 3, “Isn’t it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

I’m sure not everyone was living in paneled houses.  But some of them were.  According to verse 7, they don’t have enough wood to build the temple.  What happened to the wood Cyrus sent to them from Lebanon?  Could it have something to do with those “paneled houses”?

God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks again in verse 5.  “Give careful thought to your ways.”  Think!  You plant but don’t harvest, eat and are still hungry, drink and yet thirst, get dressed, and are still cold.  And when you put money in your pockets, it disappears.”

The message is kind of blunt.  Think about what you’ve been doing to try to get ahead, and then be honest enough to ask yourself, “How’s that working for me?”

Most people are not honest enough to ask that question.

Another pause.

Then God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks once more.  “Give careful thought to your ways.”  Go get some wood in the hills there, and let’s get this temple built.  Put me first, and honor me.  Why has everything gone south for you?  I love the end of verse 9, just like it’s translated in the NIV.  “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.”

I know you have a life.  I know you have a family.  I know you’re busy.  I know you have to keep a roof over your head.  I know times are hard.  I know you feel you have to spin your wheels harder and faster trying to get some traction. 

Stop!  Think!  How’s that working for you?  Maybe just doing more of the same thing at an accelerated pace is not going to produce a different result.

Careful thought

I love Haggai.  Hands down, he’s my favorite among the minor prophets.  No question.  Let me tell you why.

First, Haggai is a good answer for those who insist God doesn’t really care about money and buildings.  Maybe it’s related to the fact that we do have a gorgeous building here, and are taking concrete steps toward adding more space.  It’s also the time of year when we’re talking about giving – the need to catch up and meet our budget for 2009 and the need to plan ahead for 2010.

Without Haggai and a few other biblical voices, admittedly infrequent, we would have to concede that God doesn’t really have much interest in the material side of faith.  He would just as soon we worship privately, or outdoors, or on the cheap.  All he cares about is your heart, right?  Not anything as “secular” as a dollar bill or a brick.

When we start to think that way, Haggai steps up to ask questions like these: “OK, tell me about the house you live in.  Or, in some cases, houses.  What kind of cars do you drive?  How much money do you spend on travel, on eating out, on nice clothes?  How much “stuff” do you have stored in the closets and attics of your home that you though was a big priority at the time, and now you don’t use it or need it?”

Haggai’s not trying to make people feel guilty – or maybe he is – he’s just trying to strip the veneer of B. S. away from the excuses people give for not giving to God’s work – whether it’s missions or salaries or programs or buildings. 

Let me hasten to add that I’m not talking to those who are genuinely going through financial crisis – who have lost jobs or have been beaten down by crisis after crisis.  I am talking to those for whom the right time to give never comes – the project is always wrong, people are going to misuse the money, the economy is bad and I need to save, or the time is right and I need to invest or spend. 

There is a second, but related reason, Haggai is my favorite minor prophet.  I just like his one word message, “Think.”  Well, it’s not really one word in Hebrew – it’s three.  “Give careful thought” is the literal translation, and Haggai uses it twice in chapter one (vv. 5,7) and twice in chapter two (vv. 15, 18).  (That’s all his chapters.)  This is one time when one English word will substitute for three Hebrew words.  “Think!”

It’s amazing how often we fail to do that.  So set aside the specific message of Haggai’s book (about giving and building) and just imagine how often God-of-the-Angel-Armies looks down on us and says, “Think!”  Stop long enough to step outside your situation and ask some honest questions.  Questions like these…

·         What priority do I keep postponing year after year because it never seems to be the right time?

·         Where have I been prone to question the power or wisdom of God-of-the-Angel-Armies?

·         What blessing in my life have I falsely assumed was given for my selfish consumption?

·         How has God been trying to get through to me and I keep calling it ‘coincidence’?

·         What is God trying to teach me about or remind me of through calamity or difficulty?

·         Where do I keep trying the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result?

·         What excuses sound perfectly rational to me, but ridiculous to anyone else?

·         Who is the Haggai in my life that God is using to ask me to “think!”

“Give careful thought.” Amen.