 |
| This is the spillway at the Lower Nihotapu dam at Parau in the Waitakere rangers west of Auckland. It is one of the reservoirs that provides water for Auckland City... A real blessing. |
We are working our way through the book of Haggai. We are
calling the series renewal in the ruins. Haggai has spoken to the people who
had come back from exile to Jerusalem and inspired and encouraged them to
rebuild the temple. He had called them to renew their focus as a community,
their identity as God’s people was to be found in God’s presence with them
symbolised by the temple. As they
started to rebuild and encountered discouragement and despondency he had spoken
to them about the renewal of their Hope: Hope found in the presence, providence and purpose of God and now Haggai turns to speak of foundations for the renewal
of God’s covenant blessing for them as his people. As I sat down to put this
message together my devotions for the day were entitled “only Holiness leads to
happiness” and that was a real God moment because it sums up in nut shell what
Haggai’s message to the then and there and the here and now is… “Only Holiness
leads to happiness”.
That is not a recipe that says if we are good god will be
good to us… More that if we simply seek our own pleasure as the returnees had
been doing, we meet the law of diminishing returns… we get less out of more we
have… If our focus is on God and his Kingdom… then we become more and amore
aware of God’s blessings.
Let’s set the scene.
Once again Haggai’s words have a specific date. In this case
it is the twenty fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius
(December 14th if you want to tie it in to our calendar). Three
month’s after the people had started to build the temple in response to
Haggai’s first message. The previous two oracles had been tied to religious
festivals. The new moon festival and the feast of tabernacles, but this one
does not fit in with such a religious holiday or gathering. However, in verse
18 Haggai refers to the day that the foundation stone of the temple was laid
and in Ezra 3 we have a record of the people gathering for a festival when that
happened. In the Ancient near east when a foundation stone was laid there would
be a religious gathering and a blessing for the endeavour. This day could also
have been a significant other step in the building process, maybe even
something being build on the foundation stone. We’ve laid the stone but know we
are getting on with the job.
We do know that in the agricultural calendar this would have
been at the end of the period of time when people would have been planting out
seed for next years harvest. So at the end of that time there may have been a
gathering to celebrate that and to pray for the coming harvest, Haggai says in
verse 19 is there any seed yet left in the barn? Which fits in with that… and
his message that from this day on God will bless you, does fit in with hope for
the coming harvest. In his first oracle Haggai had said that because of the
people were disobeying God’s call on them to rebuild the temple, that God could
not bless them and the harvest were going to be small, now as they have started
the work Haggai makes the bold prediction that God will change that.
What we have in the
passage we had read out to us is two oracles given on the same day, given
together. In structure it is very much like the first of Haggai’s oracles, it
starts with a series of questions that leads into the prophets teaching and
calls the people to carefully consider their ways and finishes with a declaration
of God’s actions on behalf of his people. In this Haggai sets the foundations
for the renewal of God’s Blessing. It is a restoring, a turning round of the
way things were because the people have turned round, they have repented and
gone God’s way.
In these two coracles Haggai considers the consequences of
past disobedience, looks at current obedience, and declares the certainty of
blessing. So let’s explore those three things.
The consequences of
past disobedience.
When the people had come back to Jerusalem they had been
very quick to re-establish the sacrificial system. The altar was re-established
and sacrifices offered. This forms the basis for Haggai’s questions to the
priests in verse 11-13. They have to do with ritual cleanliness or holiness.
The first one asks if food that has been set aside for God
is carried in the fold of a garment but then touches other food does it make
that food Holy? The answer to that from
the priests is “no”, Holiness being set aside for God is not contagious. It
can’t be passed on…
The second question is about dead bodies. If someone touches
a dead body then touches food set aside for an offering does the food become
defiled? And the answer is yes, uncleanliness is contagious. This being
ritually unclean by touching a dead body is at the heart of Jesus parable of
the good Samaritan, the priest and the Levi going up to the temple. If they
touched the man who was set upon by robbers and he was dead they could not have
served their turn in the temple, as they would have been unclean and what they
touched would have been deemed ritually unclean.
Haggai uses these questions to show that God considered all
the offering they had made as being
unclean and unacceptable because the people had not obeyed God, and
rebuilt the temple. Even though they had gone through the motions how Could God
bless them if they were being disobedient. Like God’s people down through the
ages they had tried to separate the idea of ritual holiness from ethical
holiness.
Sacrifices were given for the forgiveness of sins, but the
call of God was that people would live a life that reflected the God they knew
and served. It is like when my kids were smaller I used to like doing things like taking them out for icecream or another treat, but when they were not behaving I couldn't do it, I still loved them and cared for them and had to discipline them, but when change happened I would be quick to give them a treat...
For us it is the sacrifice of a totally righteous person,
Jesus Christ that has put us right with God, that has atoned for our sins. That
has put us right with God, the call we have is that we live that out by hearing
Jesus words and obeying them, and we can do that because of the presence and
guidance of the holy Spirit in our lives.
We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ and we are called to a life of
sanctification as we grow in Christ and learn to live and love as Christ lived
and loved.
It is a challenge for all of us, as biblical scholar Mark
Boda says “it’s easy for us to get caught up in the mechanics of our
religious activities and not focus on the importance and impact of individual
and corporate obedience”.
Then in Haggai’s second oracle on that day he turns from
consequences of the past to look at the people current obedience. Here they are
they have started to rebuild the temple. During the harvest time they had
thought carefully about what they were doing and had started to rebuild the
temple, they hadn’t just stopped at cleaning off the altar and having the
sacrifices, but had begun building the temple. They were doing what God had
called them to be doing. The temple was not just a place for sacrifice for the
forgiveness of sin but was a place to focus on God’s presence with his people
and that they were called to live as a witnessing community to the goodness and
holiness of God by the way they lived. In 1 Chronicles 28 as David lay out his
plans for the temple, he calls Solomon and all those who were to build the
temple “to give careful thought to their ways” sound familiar “ to keep all the
commandments of the Lord, that you may possess all the good things of the
land.”
Amos was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel, he had
come at a time of great prosperity and religious fervour in the city of
Samaria. The people saw their prosperity as a sign of God’s blessing, and God’s
word through Amos was that this was not the case, in fact they were laying the
foundation of their own judgment, by treating God, like one of the other gods
around them, thinking he would simply bless them because the observed the right
religious rituals. While at the same time their prosperity was based on the
exploitation of the poor and unjust trading practises. Amos’s message is that “God hates your
festivals and your songs and sacrifices make God sick to the stomach, what God
wants is that justice flow like a river and righteousness like a never ending
stream.’
The difference of the foundation in the two builder in the
parable Jesus finishes his sermon on the mount in Matthew’s gospel is that on
with the solid foundation is the one who listens to Jesus word and obeys it,
the other hears the word and carries on their own way. They both experience the storms and floods of
life, but the one who obeyed Jesus words stands.
Now Haggai also calls
them to carefully consider their ways. The obedience wasn’t just in rebuilding
the temple that was a symbol of that deeper call to live as God’s people. But
the current obedience laid a foundation for the renewal of God’s blessing.
Haggai finishes his oracle with a declaration of certainty
that God would Bless his people. They had not had a good harvest, when they had
come back to Jerusalem they had expected that it would be wonderful and
prosperous and full of happiness, but it had not been. Now Haggai takes a bold
step by telling them that as they had started to obey God’s purpose for them,
that the deprivation of the past would change and God would bless them.
For Haggai his focus is specifically that they would have a
bumper crop. Maybe as he was speaking the autumn rain that was so necessary for
the agriculture of the region to grow was starting and the Haggai is tying that
in with what is happening in Jerusalem, or he is making a bold prediction. Up
until know Haggai has told forth the word of God, bringing God’s word to the
situation and context, but here is foretelling. But it is based on what he
knows of God and God’s character.
The foundation for God’s people in Haggis’s day and in our
own is the goodness of God, that God is with and for his people. That it is
God’s desire to bless his people, that is a certainty. God’s desire is that his
people, all the people of the earth, come to know God and his goodness.
Haggai’s previous oracle had finished with and in that place I will give you
peace… which means wholeness. In the book of Timothy, Paul tells us all to pray
because it is God’s desire that all may come to a saving knowledge of Jesus
Christ. That we will be put right with God through his gracious sacrifice for
us. In John’s gospel that saving knowledge is called abundant life, full life, it’s
so abundant because of the presence and provision and purpose of God that it
goes beyond the grace into eternity, lived with our eternal God.
And If the book of Haggai finished here we might be tempted
to say that we can earn God’s blessing by our good deeds and equate God’s
blessing with prosperity. In the end the
grace and hope of Haggai’s declaration is God’s sovereign promise to bless his
people, it’s God’s grace, God’s grace, God’s grace…
The challenge of Haggai is the same for us as it was for
God’s people then and there. It is to consider carefully our ways, it is a call
to see that fulfilment and fullness comes from knowing God through Jesus
Christ, hearing God’s word and putting it into practise in our lives… “Only
Holiness leads to happiness”. The promise is God’s blessing…
Also the book of Haggai does not finish here. There is one
more word that Haggai brings on the same day as the two we looked at today. It
is a word for Zerubbabel and it is a word that finishes the process of renewal
by speaking of the renewal of covenant relationship, which is at the heart of
covenant blessing… the heart of our hope… that points us forward to Jesus
Christ, the fulfilment of all the promises and hopes of the remnant in their
coming back, the fulfilment of Israel’s hope and ours. The fulfilment of God’s
promise to bless his people. We are going to look at that in a fortnights time.
No comments:
Post a Comment