Look Above, Look Ahead (Haggai 1:1-2:23)

Look Above, Look Ahead

 

Haggai 1:1-2:23

 

Haggai is the 9^th of the twelve Minor Prophets. In the history of Israel, the exile to Babylon was a critical turning point, and the Minor Prophets may also be divided into those before the exile and those after. As you see in the chart, there are three post-exilic prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and Haggai is the first prophet after the returning of the remnants of Israel from the Babylonian captivity. In the chart, while the pre-exilic prophets are characterized by words such as “Day of the Lord,” “judgment,” and “indignation,” the post-exilic prophets bring more hopeful messages about “restoration” and “the kingdom of God.” This suggests that, although the people had experienced terrible sufferings symbolized by the destruction of the Temple, they still have the hope of the restoration of the Kingdom of God. And this hope is closely connected to the Temple.

 

According to Ezra, in his first year (536 B.C.), Cyrus, the king of Persia, proclaimed: “The Lord, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you – may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. And the people of any place where survivors may now be living are to provide him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:2-4). By this royal edict, 42,360 exiles returned to Jerusalem and Judah including Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the governor of Judah. In the second year (535 B.C.) after they arrived in Jerusalem, they began to work for the reconstruction of the temple, and laid the foundation. However, the work was suspended for about 15 years until it was resumed in 520, which is the beginning part of Haggai.

 

As we see, the motif of Haggai is the Temple. More specifically, it is about the reconstruction of the temple. In Chapter 1 verse 4, God raises the question, “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” Here “this house” means the Lord’s house, namely, the temple. God is saying, “You have built a luxury house for yourself but you don’t care for the temple and leave it ruins.” This question is about priority, and God is saying to the Israelites that they should give priority to God’s temple first rather than to their own houses. Setting priority is always a difficult thing. Especially in the situation of these Israelites who had just returned from Babylon captivity, they had many needs to be satisfied, more urgent than the reconstruction of the temple. God might know this, but still God insisted that they should give priority to the temple than to building their own houses.

 When I was in the army, I had military training. And one day I had to do something tricky like this. I stood on a platform. In front of the platform was a horizontal bar. What I should do was jumping from the platform, and catching the bar. As you see, the bar was high and far away from the platform. So I had to jump with all my strength. The instructor told us that if we jumped with all our strength, we would reach the bar and catch it. At my turn, I stood on the platform. Before I jumped, I found a problem. The platform itself was very high. And from the platform, I had to jump even higher to catch the bar. What will happen if I fail to catch the bar when I have jumped so high with all my strength? I will fall down a considerable height, and it may hurt me badly. It was risky. I had another option. I could evade the risk by just pretending to jump up but, in fact, jumping down and landing on the ground safely. So, on the platform I had to decide what to do. Shall I jump up high with all my strength to catch the bar? Or shall I only pretend to jump up and save myself from the risk of failing to catch it and falling down. This is why it is tricky to set priority. Setting priority is not just choosing a more important one. Setting priority is giving up the second most important one, which is still very important, for the most important one.

 

In many places in the Bible, God demands us to make such a decision. For example, Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Revelation 2:10b goes further, saying, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.” God says, “Jump with all your strength, then you will catch the bar.” God says, “Give up your life, then I will give you the crown of life.” This was what the Israelites was faced with. They should set priority between their lives here and now, or their lives high above and far away in the future.

 

We may think it is hurtful to abandon my house in order to construct God’s house, like jumping high at the risk of falling down and crashing to the ground. But in 1:5, God says to the Israelites, “Give careful thought to your way. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in purse with holes in it.” The Israelites worked hard not only for their houses, but also for their lands, for their food, for their drink, for their clothes, and for their wages. And it was found that they had worked for nothing. With all their efforts for their lives, they gained nothing. Why was it so? Why were all their efforts for their own welfare useless? It was because God withheld his works on them. Verse 1:10,11 says, “Therefore, because of you, the heavens withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”

 

When God asked the people to build the House of God, it was not because he needed a house. Verse 1:8 says, “Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored.” How is God honored? He is honored when we give top priority to him over anyone and anything else. God is the Most High, and he wants to be honored as the Most High among us. God is almost always merciful and generous. But God is not merciful when he is treated as the Second Most High. only as the Most High, God wants to be honored among us. As the Most Holy and Glorious, God is extremely sensitive to honor. God comes to us and dwells among us only when he is honored properly as God. In the Bible, we can see how God was honored by Abraham who gave up his one and only son Isaac to God, and by Jesus who even gave up his life to obey God the Father. This is even true to ourselves. A few years ago, I wanted to visit my daughter who was in her school dormitory, but I wondered if she would welcome me. She might be too busy to see me. So I called her and said I would like to visit her. She was very happy with that. Even she asked me to prepare a Bible study for her. When I got there, she put everything aside, and stuck to me from morning until evening when I left her. I was honored.

 

The Israelites could not honor God by building a temple as luxurious as the Solomon’s Temple. Although they worked hard, the restored temple was very humble. But what God wanted was not a luxury temple. What God wanted was that his people gave their heart to God first and took care of God’s house so that God might dwell among them. In 2:3,4 God said, “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it now seem to you like nothing?” The restored temple looked nothing compared to the former one built by Solomon. When they looked back the past glory, they were very sad. They thought that they were no more, and they didn’t have a future. Thinking that they were declining, they were discouraged and fearful. But God said to them, “Be strong.” God said to them, “I am with you.” “My Spirit remains among you.” “Do not fear.” Even God said, “I will fill this house with glory” and also said, “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.” God also promised, “I will grant peace.” God was pleased with the humble temple, and gave on it his glorious promises.

 

The Israelites were weak and defiled people. What they could do by themselves apart from God was only reproducing their sins and multiplying their miseries. Without God, they couldn’t expect anything good. In 2:15, God said, “Now give careful thought to this from this day on – consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple.” In 2:18 again, God said, “Give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid.” God is telling them, “Look with your own eyes how much different it is between before and after the foundation of the temple was laid.” Before the foundation of the temple was laid, God struck all the work of their hands with blight, mildew, and hail. But now when they turned to God and laid the stones for building the temple, God also turned to them and declared, “From this day on I will bless you.” God promised blessings from that day. God promised that he would bless every seed they planted, so they might scatter every seed they had without leaving a grain in the barn. “From this day on I will bless you.” This was what God was so eager to do for his people, and was waiting so impatiently. “From this day on I will bless you.”

 

In setting priority, we may think that we have two or three options, the best, the second best, and the third best. We may think that even if we cannot catch the bar by jumping with all our strength, we still have the option to land on the ground safely. We may think that even if we treat God in the second best way, we may have a chance to get his blessings. But this is not true. We have only one option. “Turn to God and Honor Him.” This is not a better option. “Turn to God and Honor Him!” This is the only option. Without turning to God and honoring Him, we don’t have a solid ground to land safely. Without turning to God and honoring Him, our efforts and struggles cannot produce anything except sins and miseries. We have only one choice. “Turn to God and Honor Him!”

 

To my sermon, I gave the title “Look Above Look Ahead.” Like the Israelites, people always look for security. Because of this, they are easily tied down to the ground and to the past. Like the Israelites, people look back their seemingly better past and are frustrated with their present meager situation. But God always leads us to a more glorious future with his blessings from heaven. God never comes to us without giving us a hope of glorious future, even if I am hundred years old. As long as we turn to God, we always have a hope for a higher ground. When we see God in heaven and his glorious promises, we can keep moving forward with hope. There is nothing secure in the world. only God is secure. So we should use all we have to honor God. This is jumping with all our strength. This is looking above and looking ahead.