Sermon: Take Courage! (2016)

Delivered at Dacusville United Methodist Church in Easley, South Carolina on November 6, 2016.

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Take Courage!

Audio Version

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 by the prophet Haggai, saying: Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?  How does it look to you now?  Is it not in your sight as nothing?  Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt.  My spirit abides among you; do not fear.  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; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, 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.  The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.

Haggai 1:15b-2:9 (NRSV)

I've been on a losing streak

Hit so hard I couldn't speak

But when I hear Your voice it fades away

From "Brand New Day" by Fireflight

Once day, the prophet Ahijah met a taskmaster named Jeroboam by the side of the road, just outside Jerusalem.  The prophet removed his robe, ripped it into twelve pieces, and then gave ten pieces to the taskmaster.  The glory days of Israel had come to an end.  King Solomon - the very same king who prayed to God for the wisdom to lead his people and went on to oversee the construction of the temple - had let his power go to his head, and he was leading his kingdom down a very destructive path.¹  In 930 BC, that same taskmaster led an uprising against Solomon's successor Rehoboam, and Israel was riven in twain.²  Ten tribes seceded to form the northern Kingdom of Israel, while the two remaining tribes became the southern Kingdom of Judah.  Each kingdom fell under a long line of corrupt rulers who lead the people away from God.  A host of prophets tried to turn the two kingdoms back to God, but, for the most part, all they could do was to watch helplessly as the two kingdoms spiraled into chaos.

Divided, they fell.  In 720 BC, King Sargon II of Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom's capital city of Samaria and took the population of the city captive.³  In 587 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon breached the walls of Jerusalem, captured and blinded the King of Judah, burned down the Temple of the Lord, leveled the city, and took many of the people into captivity.⁴  The exiles found themselves by the river in Babylon, weeping over the downfall of their homeland and seething with rage toward their conquerors.⁵

Despite all that had happened, the story of the Jewish people was not over.  "I know the plans I have for you," God said through the prophet Jeremiah, "plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."⁶

The exile of the Jewish people came to an end nearly fifty years later in 538 BC, after the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persian Empire under the leadership of Cyrus the Great.  Cyrus, who is remembered by history as both a conqueror and a humanitarian, sought a peaceful coexistence with the peoples he conquered.  In what is considered to be one of the world's earliest declarations of human rights, he allowed the people who had been displaced by the Assyrians and the Babylonians to return to their homelands to rebuild their homes and religious centers.⁷  The Bible suggests that God put the idea into Cyrus's heart to allow the exiles to return to their homes and rebuild.⁸  The Book of Isaiah even refers to Cyrus the Great as the Lord's anointed.⁹  The Hebrew word translated into English as anointed is mashiyach, from which we derive the word messiah.¹⁰

Among those who returned to Jerusalem were Zerubbabel, the man who would serve under King Cyrus as the governor of the province of Judah, and Joshua the high priest.  These two men would oversee the construction of a second temple.  Their first objective was to rebuild the Brazen Altar so that the people could resume the ritual offerings and celebrations prescribed by the Jewish Law, even before the new temple was completed.  After the altar was completed and the people had resumed their religious practices, work began on the foundation of the temple.  Once the foundation was completed, the people rejoiced; however, many of the people who were old enough to remember the glory of the first temple cried out in despair at the sight of the new temple's foundation.¹¹

After the foundation was laid, the Jewish people began to face resistance from the "people of the land," the descendants of Israelites who married Assyrians, who will come to be known as the Samaritans.  At first, the Samaritans offered their assistance in a veiled sabotage attempt, but, when their assistance was refused, they began to bribe government officials in order to frustrate the efforts to rebuild the temple.¹²  After the death of Cyrus the Great in 530 BC,¹³ the Samaritans wrote a letter to the new king of Persia, claiming that the Jewish people intended to revolt once they completed work on the temple.  To maintain control over the province of Judah, the king sent his deputy to Jerusalem and ordered that all work on the temple be stopped immediately.¹⁴

In 522 BC, King Darius I ascended the Persian throne.¹⁵  The former king was gone along with his cease-and-desist order, but the people were still hesitant to resume construction on the temple.

In the book 11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without, Methodist theologian Leonard Sweet argues that each of us needs what he calls a "butt-kicker."  Sometimes, on our journeys, when obstacles block the path ahead of us or when disappointment knocks us down, we might be tempted to throw in the towel.  At times like these we need someone to kick us in the rear end, spiritually speaking, and get us moving down the path once again.  Sweet writes, "When you're spiritually neutered, or when you've become complacent and complaisant, when you begin to shrink from your mission, you need a [butt-kicker] to keep you loyal to your dreams."¹⁶  The Jewish people had been through a lot - civil war, political turmoil, the destruction of their homes, exile in enemy territory - and, just as they began to make some progress in rebuilding their temple, their culture, and their lives, their efforts were quashed by the powers that be.  The Jewish people needed someone to spur them on to continue on the journey they started.

Enter Haggai.

Like any good butt-kicker, the prophet Haggai calls his audience to move forward.  At the insistence of Haggai and his fellow prophet Zechariah, the people of Judah resume work on the temple,¹⁷ and, once construction is underway, Haggai continues to encourage the people.  "Take courage!" God says to Zerubbabel, to Joshua, and to the people of Judah through the prophet.  "Work, for I am with you... according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt.  My Spirit abides among you; do not fear."

The journey of faith is a journey into the unknown at the call of an invisible God to do things we would have once thought impossible.  Haggai's prophecy reminds us that the journey of faith requires courage.  It takes courage to set out on a journey when the path ahead of us is hazy, when we do not know where the journey will take us, when we do not even know how we will complete our journey.  Haggai's prophecy echos the words that God has said so many times to God's people: "I am with you."

"I will be with you," God said to the Jewish patriarchs when they faced difficulty.¹⁸

"I will be with you," God said to Moses when he was afraid to return to Egypt.¹⁹

"I will be with you," God said to Joshua as he prepared to led the people into the Promised Land.²⁰

"I am with you," God said to the exiles far from home in Babylon.²¹

The prophecy even foreshadows the message of comfort Christ leaves with the Apostles as He sends them out to proclaim the Good News throughout the world: "I am with you always, to the end of the age."²²

On the journey of faith, the road ahead of us can become dark and cloudy at times.  God promises to be with us every step of the way, and we are invited to draw strength from the well of God's presence.

Taking a step in faith requires courage when we have allowed the disappointments of the past to fester into an attitude of negativity.  The Jewish people worked hard to rebuild the temple and establish a sense of normalcy after returning home, and their efforts were rewarded with harassment and a cease-and-desist order.  It is only natural that they would be reluctant to pick up their tools and start building once again.

Sometimes we use negativity to numb ourselves.  When we choose to be hopeful, we leave ourselves vulnerable to possible disappointments, but, if we just assume that nothing good ever happens in life, we will never have to worry about being disappointed.  Hope is easily misplaced, and false hope often leads to disappointment and heartache, but despair brings with it a twisted sense of certainty.  Shane Hipps compares a person who chooses the certainty of despair out of a fear of false hope to a farmer who tosses a handful of seed into a fire.  Though there is no guarantee that the seed will take root and grow if it is scattered on the ground, there is a zero percent chance it will ever bear fruit if it is thrown into a fire.²³  Hope can be risky, but with greater risks come greater rewards.  On the journey of faith, God has promised to be with us, guiding us and empowering us, but we will never know what possibilities await us unless we step out in faith and hold God to His word.

Sometimes we find ourselves trapped in the past, not by negativity, but by nostalgia.  We long for life as it was back then:

back then in the "good old days,"

back then when life seemed simpler,

back then before everything fell apart,

back then before cynicism set in,

back then when we felt more hopeful.

The sad truth is that nostalgia is ultimately a longing for something that never existed in the first place.  The anxieties of the present lead us to romanticize the past, but the so-called "good old days" were almost never as good as we imagine them to be.

Haggai's prophecy directly addresses the nostalgia of the elders returning from exile, those who had witnessed the beauty of the first temple and despaired when they saw the foundation of the second temple.  God says through the prophet, "The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former... and in this place I will give prosperity."  We cannot move forward when we're living in the past.  In the words of Rob Bell,
There's a certain kind of despair that sets in when we believe that things were better back then.  When we're stuck back there.  When we're not fully present.  When we're still holding on to how things were, our arms aren't free to embrace today.²⁴
Sometimes we think that life will never be like it used to be... and we're exactly right.  The past is behind us, but, if we are willing to let go of our nostalgia and step out in faith in the present, then we just might find that God has a bright future in mind for us.  The future will never be like the past, but it might be better.

Through Haggai, God announces, "I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor."  Though the temple had been plundered and destroyed in the past, God promises that it will be filled with beauty and splendor once again.  "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine," God says.  I believe that, if God truly puts dreams into our hearts, then God will not leave us without the means to turn those dreams into realities.  If our dreams truly come from God, then we can count on God to provide the material and spiritual resources we need to achieve those dreams.  After all, the resources are God's to give.  To borrow an expression from our Quaker brothers and sisters, "The way will open."  We should not feel inadequate to pursue our dreams.  It has been said that "God does not call the equipped; God equips the called."

Haggai's prophecy is a call to leave behind both the nostalgia and the negativity that would trap us in the past and to step boldly into the future. We can step out in faith because we know that God is with us.  Haggai's prophecy is as true for us today as it was for the Jewish people over 2500 years ago.

Take courage!  The Lord is with you.

Amen.


Notes:

1. 1 Kings 11:29-39
2. Wikipedia: Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)
3. ibid
4. Wikipedia: Siege of Jerusalem (587 B)
5. See Psalm 137.
6. Jeremiah 29:11 (NRSV)
7. Wikipedia: Cyrus the Great
8. Ezra 1
9. Isaiah 45 (NRSV)
10. Blue Letter Bible: mashiyach
11. Ezra 3
12. Ezra 4:1-5  (See also Wikipedia: Book of Ezra.)
13. Wikipedia: Cyrus the Great
14. Ezra 4:6-24
15. Wikipedia: Darius I
16. Leonard Sweet.  11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without.  2008, David C. Cook. ch. 3
17. Ezra 5:1-2
18. Genesis 26:3 and Genesis 31:3 (NRSV)
19. Exodus 3:2 (NRSV)
20. Joshua 1:5 (NRSV)
21. Isaiah 41:10 (NRSV)
22. Matthew 28:20 (NRSV)
23. Shane Hipps.  "Miracles and Maple Trees."  Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 10/16/11
24. Rob Bell.  NOOMA Today | 017.  2007, Flannel. 

The painting of Zerubbabel showing his plans to Cyrus the Great was painted by Jacob van Loo in the 17th century.