Advent Midweek I

Advent Midweek I: “The Time Has Come: Consider Your Ways”

December 4, 2024

Text: Haggai 1

            The Word of the LORD came to the hand of the preacher.  Write to those in power, the governor, the high priest.  Then, write to the people.  And this is what you are to write: “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord…  Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?  Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways” (Hag. 1:2, 4-5; ESV). 

            It had been nearly 70 years since Solomon’s Temple was destroyed, and Judah went into exile in Babylon.  Now they were beginning to return, under the leadership of Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the High Priest.  And they made a good beginning.  They laid the foundation of the new Temple, a House for God to dwell among them once more, and they built an altar for sacrifice (Cf. Ezra 3 and 5).  But then their initial enthusiasm waned, when the work became hard.  The Samaritans, descendants of the Ten Tribes leftover from the Assyrian captivity, mingled with other nations brought in to colonize Palestine, relatives and bitter enemies of the Jews… they opposed the work.  They wrote letters to the emperor, made false accusations, threatened violence.  And you know what happens to a project (especially in the Church) when things get hard, when there is challenge and conflict.  People quit.  They go home.  They become indifferent.  So, for sixteen years, the work was simply abandoned.  There was the foundation.  There was the altar.  There was no Temple, no House for God. 

            But there were paneled houses for the people.  That is to say, whatever the challenge, the returning exiles made sure of their own comfort.  Even some amount of luxury.  Not just houses.  Paneled houses.  And, of course, it isn’t sinful to live in paneled houses, to make sure of the comfort of your own home.  The sin is to disregard the House of God in favor of your own luxury.  To say, “This isn’t the time for that.  This isn’t the time for God.  This is the time for me.  These resources He has given me are for me to spend on me.  This freedom He has given me from Babylonian captivity frees me to be concerned with me.  And anyway, there are the Samaritans.  Facing their opposition is difficult and dangerous.  So, let’s wait.  The right time will come.  Some day.  Another day.  Perhaps when it can be someone else’s problem.”

            Isn’t that the way of the flesh?  Of course, you know, right, that if you’re waiting for just the right time, and just the right circumstances, before undertaking something big, like a building project, or getting married, or having children, or whatever it is, that right time and those right circumstances will never come.  It’s an excuse!  It’s a self-justification for reluctance or indifference.  It’s the flesh.  Crucify it.  Repent. 

            That is why God sends His preacher.  That is why He sends the Prophet Haggai.  “Consider your ways,” he says (Hag. 1:5, 7).  Twice!  Examine yourselves.  Repent.  Have you noticed, dear returning exiles, that though you sow much, you reap little; that though you eat much, you are never satisfied; your drink, your clothes, fail to fill and warm you.  And your wages?  You put them in a bag of holes.  Your wealth… it all slips away.  The heavens withhold their dew.  The earth withholds its produce.  There is drought.  Why?  Because “my house… lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house” (v. 9).  If you shrink at the challenge of building My House, I will give you challenge in maintaining yours. 

            Here is the long and the short of it: God does not bless reluctance, stinginess, miserliness toward Him and toward the things of His House.  He does not bless selfishness.  After all, that is a lack of faith.  “If I give God this money, this time, this labor, this sacrifice, I will lose.  I will lack.  I will never get back what I spend.  And I cannot count on God to provide.” 

            Quite the contrary!  God blesses eager enthusiasm for the things of God, generosity in money, time, yes, labor, sacrifice, and suffering for His Kingdom.  Just watch Him, and see.  Now, this is not to say that you’ll never suffer lack or loss, drought or famine, if you’re generous toward God.  He does lay crosses upon us for our good.  We know that well enough.  But it is to say, God blesses faithfulness.  He does not bless unfaithfulness.  He does not bless indifference.  And it often does happen (and I believe it will happen with the building program of Augustana Lutheran Church) that, if you set yourselves eagerly to the task of building a House for God, in spite of the challenges and conflicts that will arise (we know they will), God will bless it. 

            Because that is what He says through His Prophet Haggai.  The people repent after reading the letters.  And God once again sends His preacher, His messenger (angel is actually the word he uses to describe Haggai), this time preaching the consolation of the Gospel: “I am with you, declares the LORD” (v. 15).  And that is the Promise that makes all the difference.   By this Word of Promise, the LORD stirs up the spirit of Zerubbabel, and the spirit of Joshua.  He stirs up the spirit of the remnant of the people, those returning from exile.  What a wonderful Advent phrase!  Stirs up…  Throughout the Season, three out of four weeks, we pray in the Collect that the LORD would stir things up!  “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come… Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son…” and again, “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come.”  “Stir up Your power!  Stir up our hearts!  Come, O Lord, and be present with us… and be in us with Your Spirit… and then nothing can harm us.  No one can hinder us.  Our hands will be strengthened.  Our hearts will be steeled.  Our darkness will be lightened.  Our sorrows turned to joy.”  “I am with you, declares the LORD.”  That is His answer to our Advent prayer.

            And, of course, that is the whole purpose of Advent.  Emmanuel is coming, God with us.  “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare His way.”  Let us consider our ways, and make a course correction.  That is repentance.  That is the preparation.  To turn back from our ways and set ourselves on His way.

            So… repentance.  Stirring up.  Emmanuel, God with us.  But there is even more Advent-y goodness in the Prophet Haggai.  You know that the Hebrew name Yehoshua, Joshua, is translated into New Testament Greek as Iesous, Jesus.  And what is Joshua here in our text, but the High Priest, foreshadowing the new and greater Joshua, our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who makes THE Sacrifice of Atonement for our sins on the altar of the cross.  That is why He came in the flesh.  To save us from our sins.  And then, this Zerubbabel, the governor, as it happens, is a son of David.  And he is a forefather of THE Son of David, our Lord Jesus, born of Mary. 

            It is no accident that these two, along with the people, build the new Temple.  Through them, the LORD Himself is building His true Temple, the dwelling place of God with man.  Christ is the Temple.  Simeon knows it in our Gospel (Luke 2:22-40).  Anna knows it.  And when we are baptized into Christ, we are incorporated into that Temple.  “You are God’s temple,” Paul says, and “God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Cor. 3:16).

            And the point is this: God already has His Temple, here, where Christ is, and where He gathers a people to Himself.  That part is done.  By grace alone.  The Church is built.  God did it.  But now, what is the application of all of this to our present circumstances?  The time has come.  The Temple in this place needs a physical House to dwell in.  God’s House.  Our home.  Let us consider our ways.  Let us repent of all reluctance, all indifference.  Christ has freed us from our Babylonian captivity.  Our sins are forgiven.  We have eternal life.  And as for paneled houses and daily bread, well… we are well provided.  Beloved, let your spirit be stirred by the Lord’s Spirit, and His Word of Promise: “I am with you, declares the LORD.”  Build.  Take up the work.  What will happen?  What hardships and challenges will we face?  I don’t know.  But I do know this: God will bless it.  And you will rejoice.

            Postscript: Twenty-four days from Haggai taking up his pen, the people took up their tools and resumed work on the House of the Lord, as the Spirit stirred them.  Nearly 500 years later, the Lord Jesus came into that very edifice, in the flesh, to be presented to His Father.  Simeon’s spirit was stirred to sing the Nunc Dimittis.  God grant us a place to call home, where we, too, may receive the Lord Jesus as He comes into His Temple, and take up Simeon’s song afresh.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.