Haggai the prophet

Today, in the last of our series looking at the prophets of the Old Testament, we come to Haggai, the first of the three whose messages date from after the exile of the Jews in Babylon. That period of exile, following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586, had forced the Jews to a radical rethink of their religion. They were far from the land which had been considered God’s sphere of influence. (Psalm 137v1-4: "By the rivers of Babylon - there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.... How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?") The temple had been destroyed, so they could no longer offer the sacrifices, which had been central to their religion from the time of Moses. This led to a new emphasis on the bible. It is possibly during the exile that much of the Old Testament took its current form as the messages of previous prophets were collected, the historical books (such Kings & Chronicles) were edited, the Psalms were arranged into the five books we have today, and, many modern scholars believe, the first five books of the bible were edited into their current form. Certainly these writings were studied in a new depth, with a new species of religious leader, of whom Ezra is the best example, emerging, people whose role was to interpret the writings of the Old Testament to the Jewish people. The exile in Babylon was a time to repent of their nation’s rejection of God and his laws, a time in which a longing for God to restore his people grew, as witnessed in important prophetic writings of this period - Daniel, Ezekiel & the second half of Isaiah. The expectation that God would intervene in history grew, including the hope that he would send a Saviour, the Messiah, who would inaugurate a new era in God’s relationship with his people.

In 539BC the Babylonian empire was overthrown by Cyrus, king of Persia, and the following year he issued a decree encouraging those who had been exiled from their lands by the Babylonians to return to their natives countries and rebuild the temples of their various gods, on condition that they prayed him. Thus in 537BC a group of Jews returned to Jerusalem to start work on the temple, as is recorded in the book of Ezra. But after a few years they stopped, partly because of opposition from foreigners living in Jerusalem, partly as they turned their attention exclusively to building their own houses and the infrastructure of their city. This is the background to the message of Haggai and the opening message of Zechariah, whose encouraging message about Jersualem’s future growth we just heard. In August 520BC, with a new King, Darius, on the Persian throne, Haggai issued a challenge to God’s people to resume work on the temple, which they did only 23 days later, and encouraged by him they stuck at the task until it was completed and rededicated in 516, 70 years after the old temple had been destroyed, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah (25v11-12) that their exile would last that length of time. So what was Haggai’s message, and what relevance has it to us, 2500 years later?

1. What are our priorities? Whatever political difficulties may have led to the suspension of work on the temple, when Haggai spoke he declared roundly that there was only one issue at stake - the priorities of people. When the subject of resuming work on God’s temple came up, the collective response was, "It’s not yet the right time!" (1v2) They were too busy with work on their own houses, which they were panelling (1v4) to make them more beautiful. God clearly challenged them to put him first in their lives, to get the temple built, thus restoring the focus for their relationship with him.
   
   The question of priorities is of course an ever recurring one. Each of us has a fixed amount of time to spend each day, week, month and year. How do we decide how to use it? God challenges us again and again to give a proportion of our time to him (that’s the point of the Sabbath commandment, for example) - one day in seven should be set aside to relax from work and to worship God. We are invited to take time each day to pray, to listen and talk to God, we are offered the opportunity to read our bibles each day, so as to be fed spiritually, and we are called to give time to meeting with other Christians to encourage one another. Do we give the right priority to these things, or do we fit God into spare moments which we might find? We are also called to give time to other people, especially to our families. Do we do that, or do work & selfish recreation squeeze them into a corner? We are called to give our best to our jobs of work - do we do that? or do we give as little as we can get away with, or conversely allow work to fill too much of our lives? We also need to think about the goals for our lives. Are they selfish, purely material? Are they in harmony with God’s teachings, with people and relationships having a high priority in our plans? This includes how we spend what money we have, an issue highlighted by the last of the O.T. prophets, Malachi (3v8-12). All this is a big challenge for most of us, one we need to frequently revisit. May I repeat the invitation I have given before to use a grid I’ve prepared to look at your priorities afresh?

2. Believing God will bless us. God invites his people to analyse how life was going for them when they did not give him much of a priority, and the tally makes sorry reading. (1v6) Harvests had been poor, with nobody having enough; they were scraping by, with insufficient clothing to keep really warm, inflation was eating away the value of any savings they managed to make; they had been hit by a series of storms (1v9), by drought (1v10-11), and by blight & mildew (2v17). It was easy for people to feel that they needed to give their full attention to their material needs, and to put their spiritual ones on hold, but God challenges them to trust him to meet their needs, if only they will put him first. When they do so, he promises (2v19) to bless them richly. This is a theme repeated in Malachi (3v10: "Bring the whole tithe [= giving 10% of income to God] into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.") Scripture proclaims over and over again, including the promises of Jesus himself, that God is longing to bless us richly. But we have to put our trust actively in him in order to be open to receive all he has for us. If we will only put God first he will bless us beyond our imagining. Often this will include material blessings (I can only say from our experience that tithing has never left us wanting materially), but even if we do not gain material blessings we will be blessed by God spiritually in ways that more than compensate. Thus putting God first at work may mean we will not get promoted so easily as someone who is ruthless in business, but we will gain in other ways. Do we believe that God wants to bless us and will if we live in his ways? This is the theme of Haggai’s 3rd message (2v10-19) as well as his first (1v1-11).

3. Look forward not back! In chapter two of his message, Haggai addresses the nostalgic despair of those who felt the "good old days" would never be matched again. Although none of the returned exiles had seen the old temple, the tales of its wonders had lost nothing in the telling through the years in Babylon. Their efforts at rebuilding seemed worthless by comparison, but God had a message of comfort & encouragement for them. They needed to focus on God himself instead of the temple. The true glory was not to be found in the building itself, however beautiful it may have been, but in the presence of God amongst his people. God had not changed his promises made at the time of their escape from Egypt to be with them by his Holy Spirit. He would fill the new temple with the glory of his presence just as much as the old one, indeed more so if they were faithful to him, and he would bring them the gift of peace (2v9).
   
   For some of us a building like the one in which we meet here is a comedown after the places of worship we have enjoyed before, and even the size of congregation may feel a disappointment. But the glory of God will be found here if we are faithful to him, in the lives of us his people. We can still worship in spirit & truth and there are positive things to be learned from our circumstances as a Church. Or some of us may be tempted to look back to "good old days" of past Christian experience, or to former jobs, friendships, homes, all kinds of things, and feel that the best is past, but God calls us also to look forward in hope with him, believing that God has still more good things to share with us. Let’s ask him to help us cultivate a positive forward-looking attitude, individually & together.

4. God wants to use us to display his character! Haggai ends with a message of encouragement to governor Zerubbabel, who may have been feeling rather low about how things we going for the little group of returnees. In God’s name he likened him to a signet ring, specially chosen by God. Such rings were used to put a seal on official government documents to guarantee their authenticity and authority. God promised that Zerubbabel would be honoured as his representative, and would be victorious over others. This is a promise fulfilled in God’s Messiah, Jesus, his descendant. But it is also something God wants to do in & through us his children. We are meant to show to the world what God is like, through our words & deeds, so people will acknowledge him and his authority, turning to him in faith. Our corporate life should be a pledge of God’s kingdom and glory as we live in love & harmony under Jesus. Is that how we see ourselves, how we are as God’s people?

If you’d like to get more fully into the message of Haggai, there is a study sheet available today. Why not prayerfully fill in my priorities grid also? I’m sorry I couldn’t fit in Zechariah today too - he’ll have to await another occasion, as will Malachi & Daniel, but I hope you have benefited from our overview of most of the prophets and that you’ll want to read them more for yourself. Meanwhile let’s take home with us Haggai’s challenge to put God first & reap the benefits.