What is the one thing that I need?  What is the one thing that you need?  What is the one that this church needs (or the church of which you are a part if you are part of a church)?  What is the one thing needful?  It’s been said that if you have 5 Baptists in a room they will come up with 6 different opinions.  May God grant, however, that we be in agreement on this question.

More immediately, what is it that we need to hear from God this morning?  You’ve come back or are watching online again.  The word that we heard last week was “I am with you.”  The call on our lives is to give the foundational place in our lives to God.  This is what we have been created for.  We talked about the man who is the embodiment of God’s presence – the new temple, Christ our cornerstone.  We talked about ourselves being built by the Holy Spirit into individual stones which make up the temple which is the Church.  We talked about knowing fullness of life in Christ, living most gracefully and beautifully just as a tree swallow is at its most graceful and beautiful in flight – we’re upheld on eagle’s wings (!) as another prophet put it (and we sang it together).

How wonderful this all is!

And yet we get discouraged.  And yet we feel overwhelmed.  And yet we may long for some glorious past – which is maybe not so bad in and of itself, but it can paralyse us into inaction today.  This is the situation into which Haggai speaks, “In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai.” (2:1)  The word of the Lord comes to us on the 11^th day of the sixth month of the year 2023.  Let us pray to God to give us attentive hearts.

In our story, it is about 7 weeks after Haggai first spoke to Governor Zerubabbel and High Priest Joshua.  We remember at the end of Chapter 1 how all the people committed themselves to the task of building.  It is about 4 weeks since the work of rebuilding the temple began.  The issue now is not the question of “Is now the time to rebuild the temple?”  The issue is not the centrality of Yahweh in lives.  The issue now is one of discouragement or even despondency which is arising from the comparison of what they are building now to what once stood among what is now largely ruins (the foundation of the temple has been laid at this point).  They are realizing both the magnitude of their task along with the meagreness of their resources.  “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?”  To make matters worse, the 7^th month has three holidays in it on which work could not be done.  The third one was the Feast of Booths, which lasted 7 days and which is just finishing as Haggai brings this word from God.  For those who remember the temple that Solomon built, there is a longing here for golden days – literally as when the temple was lined with gold.  Not only that but there were sacred items which will never be recovered – the Ark of the Covenant which contained the two tablets given to Moses, Aaron’s rod, even a pot of manna.  All gone!

We get this.  Whole political movements can come to power based on the promise of restoring former glory.  Such a longing can spur is into discouragement, despondency, even despair.  What does this look for us today?  It might look like living in the ruins of shattered dreams and plans we had for our lives.  It might look like longing for a day when we were filled with a single-hearted devotion to God that we no longer feel.  It might look like longing for the days when churches were filled and there was so much going on.  If we’ve immigrated, it might look like longing for an experience of church that we knew in our country of origin that just hasn’t been replicated here.  It might be longing for a movement of God that we’ve read about in history, like the Great Awakening.  It might be something like the Asbury revival which happened recently at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky.  Did you hear about this?  A regular worship service in the college chapel didn’t stop.  It turned into a praise and prayer time that lasted more than two weeks.  Thousands flocked to it and were blessed.

“Who is it among you that saw this house in its former glory?  How does it look to you now?”

Well, how does it look?  Doesn’t seem like much does it?  Of course it’s good to remember the words of Haggai’s colleague Zechariah here when he spoke to the same situation.  Do you know what he said to those of us in our discouragement?  “…whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice.”  Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice.

I’ve often said that the Bible doesn’t sugar-coat things and we’re not called to Pollyannaism or toxic positivity.  At the same time we’re not called to Chicken Little-ism – running around the barnyard in despair crying out “The sky is falling!” The Bible looks at the reality of things and the reality of the human condition and God speaks into this reality through the prophet Haggai, forthtelling and foretelling in this passage.  To begin, God doesn’t give us a sort of divine “There, there, don’t worry.”  God doesn’t chastise or reprimand us saying “How dare you think of feel this way!”  Instead God agrees that it doesn’t look like much.  “Is it not in your sight as nothing?”  It doesn’t look like much.

That’s the problem in the text.  That’s the problem in our world/in our lives.  Thanks be to God that we’re not left there.  Thanks be to God that here comes the grace!

Yet now.  But now as it’s translated in many versions.  Yet now… But now… These words echo through God’s story and they change everything.  “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him on the ark.”  But God remembers us.  “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”  “ When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead . . .”  I was lost, but God.  I could not forgive, but God.  I was cut off, but God.  What is your own “but God” truth? Let us hear the words of God to us.  Yet now, take courage.  Take courage O Zerbbabel.  Take courage, O Joshua.  Take courage, all you people of the land.  Leaders.  Everyone.  Take courage.  Work!  Press on.  Keep on pushing as the Impressions sang (look it up!).  Keep on maintaining the patterns of prayer, praise, listening for God’s voice in God’s word, gathering in small groups, gathering for worship together, gathering around the Lord’s table, celebrating milestone together, carrying out acts of service/compassion/kindness/mercy.  Take courage!  Keep on doing those things together.  Don’t drift.  Don’t ease up.  I’ve called you to do my work!  Again these words echo and reverberate.  Joshua was no Moses and it didn’t matter.  “Be strong and courageous” was the word from God to him.  “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” 

I need to hear that often and I know I’m not the only one.  Thanks be to God for God’s word to us.

Take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord, work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.  We don’t need to find the courage within ourselves.  The outer call to work is based on the inner call to courage and (later) not to fear.  We don’t need to call up courage and not fearing on our own.  They’re based on two things.

One is a truth about God.  “I am with you, according to the promise that I made when you came out of Egypt.  My spirit abides among you.”  We are called to remember.  We are called to look back.  Let our looking back remind us of what God has done.  “To God be the glory, great things he hath done” is a hymn we sing.  We remembered last week the integral nature of God’s promise of presence was to the covenant.  Listen to how the presence of God’s spirit is described in Isaiah 63 – “Then they remembered the days of old, of Moses his servant. Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock?  Where is the one who put within them his holy spirit, who caused his glorious arm to march at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths?  Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble.  Like cattle that go down in the valley, the spirit of the Lord gave them rest.” (Is 63:11-14)  Where is the one who brought them out of the sea?  Where is the one who put within them his holy spirit?  Here.  With us.  Within us.  The Holy Spirit of the living God.  The Holy Spirit of the living Christ in you the hope of glory.  Let us tell it forth and say to one another “Take courage dear family of God!”

Foretelling -speaking of future events – is the other part of prophecy.  “Do not fear,” says Haggai.  May God grant us the faith to see beyond the rubble of current circumstances.  “For thus says the Lord of hosts; Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land (in other words – everything):  and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.” (2:6-8)  There is a material aspect to this promise which the people of Jerusalem and surrounding area will see come to pass.  The temple will be completed and it will be funded by the Persian royal treasury.  Let us not be fearful about scant resources.  Paul wrote to the people of Philippi about how his financial needs for ministry had been met (with their help) and promised them.  This is what he said – “And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:19)  I have no doubt that if God is calling us to God’s service here in North Toronto, and if we are together being faithful to that call, that we will have all the spiritual and material gifts we need. 

The final promise comes in v 9 – “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and this place I will give prosperity (peace), says the Lord of hosts.” (2:9)  There is a where-this-whole-story-ends-up aspect to this promise.  Listen to how John describes the scene of the new heaven and new earth and new Jerusalem in  Rev 21:22-25 – “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there.”

That is our hope.  That is our confident expectation of good.  Universal shalom.  Universal good, peace, flourishing for all.  The Spirit of that Lamb is with us, calling and enabling us to be that shalom now.  This is the power at work within us that is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.  We who have returned from exile (and if you have not returned from exile the invitation to return is before you).  Let us not despise the day of small things.  When we returned from exile, who would have imagined that:

Blythwood would become a home for so many newcomers to Canada who have found a faith family here?  New leaders would be called, would answer that call, and in so doing would find new life and formation in the Spirit?  New partnerships would be forged with places like Seeds of Hope?  Neighbours would be walking up to our building on a Saturday morning with generous hearts and goods to share, that we might share good?  Anything else?

Let us look to the past not to be dismayed, but to be encouraged and strengthened.  Let us look to the past to see what God has done, and know that the Holy Spirit that guided and enlivened is God with us right now.  Let us look at our present and ask God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear how God is working.  Let us remember that in the kingdom of God, our expectations should be nothing but great.