REMEMBER THE GOOD OLD DAYS?

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Haggai 2:1-9

November 11, 2007

Haggai 2

^1:15bIn the second year of King Darius, ^2:1in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: ²Speak 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, ³Who 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? ⁴Yet 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, ⁵according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. ⁶For 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; ⁷and 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. ⁸The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. ⁹The 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.

Remember the good old days? In the 1950s I could walk to the Weona Grocery Store and for five cents could buy a Coca-Cola in a glass bottle which I could then return and get a penny back. There were no soft drink bottles in landfills; they were like gold to us! Remember the good old days? In 1968 I filled up a buddy’s car in Kansas City for 22 cents a gallon; it’s been over $3.00 a gallon most of last week. Remember the good old days? In the 50s the only TV on our block, which our neighbors made available to everyone, was able to get just two snowy-looking channels. Can you imagine your neighbors today just dropping in at will to watch your TV? High definition back then meant that no one’s head was in the way of the 12” screen. Do you remember the good old days? Our phone was a party line which meant that I could listen to my neighbor’s conversations even if the call wasn’t for me. You didn’t have to worry about turning off your cell phone to get a few minutes of uninterrupted time. If someone needed to talk to you right away, they drove over to your house. Or they wrote you a letter and sent it air mail. Life was slower, calmer, the days seemed to last forever, and imagination was everybody’s favorite toy. Remember the good old days?

That’s what Haggai was asking the remnant of the nation of Israel which had been conquered and destroyed sixty-seven years before. Even after many of its exiles were allowed to come home, all that was left of the nation was the despoiled city of Jerusalem and a small territory around it called Judah. Solomon’s temple in all its grandeur was a fire-blackened ruin. And Haggai asks, “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?” Using the precise information Haggai gives and the Babylonian calendar, we know that his prophecies were given between August 29 and December 18 in the year 520 B.C. This prophecy in Chapter Two is dated October 17. The foundation to rebuild the temple has already been laid and yet it only depresses the people. It’s so small compared to the old temple. And lost forever are the holy artifacts of their faith. The Ark of the Covenant is gone, never to be found again—not even by Indiana Jones. The stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments—gone. Aaron’s rod used in bringing the plagues upon the Egyptians—gone. Even with this new beginning, looking at the puny foundation, Haggai speaks what the people are feeling, “Is it not in your sight as nothing?” It’s not the way it was. Remember the good old days?

Haggai remembers them, but he sure doesn’t linger there. He shouts God’s words repeatedly to the depressed leaders and citizens, “Take courage; work, for I am with you; my spirit abides among you, do not fear.” And he gives them God’s vision, “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts.” Five hundred years later Jesus would say the same thing to his disciples shortly before his death, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.” (John 14:12) In other words, don’t stand around mourning for the good old days; greater things than those are on the way. Haggai isn’t talking about a fancier, more lavish temple building; he is talking about a greater, more faithful relationship with the Lord of Hosts. Jesus wasn’t talking about us walking on water or hauling supper for 5,000 out of one lunch sack; he was talking about a new contract with God, God’s work being done on earth in new and powerful ways through those who believe. Our longing for the past obstructs our future accomplishments. As those harmonic prophets, the Oak Ridge Boys, once said, “You can’t look forward to tomorrow and still hold on to yesterday.” Elizabeth Achtemeier puts it this way, “Do not the people of God, then, walk always on the edge of discoveries, feeling that any day there may be new workings of divine power, unmeasured possibilities for transformation, the bursting in of new heavens and a new earth? When God is with his people, they can have great expectations.”

You don’t have to suffer a terrible trauma as Israel did to be struck with this “nostalgia infection.” We all can attest to the feeling of being part of a great cause only to feel lost and directionless after it is complete. We win World War II and the troops come home, but they couldn’t let their minds and hearts stay in the war, they had a future to build. After college graduation, after all the struggle and all the years, graduates can suffer nostalgia sickness and fail to thrive, longing for the good old school days. Charter members of Crestwood put forth a monumental effort to get this church started almost 49 years ago. Then church members marshaled all their resources to build sanctuaries and classrooms. In 2000 we fought hard for the right to construct a Mission Center and we have sacrificed financially since then to provide this source of service to congregation and community. Now we can choose to sit around and get nostalgic or we can choose to get to work. We can take up a memory or we can take courage. We can believe that the best is behind us or we can believe that God has even greater things in store for us.

Haggai’s people needed a new vision and he gave it to them. He was announcing that the Lord of Hosts yearned once again to give himself to his people, to enter into a new covenant fellowship with them, and that, if they worked together, all nations would eventually come to the Lord. I’m no prophet, but I have a vision for the future of Crestwood Christian Church. I foresee a people who love Jesus more than they love anything or anyone else in life, a people passionate for the Christ who gave himself for them. I visualize a people here at Crestwood who know Jesus’ power and know the comfort, assurance and guidance that you can find in him. I see Crestwood full of people who want others to have the same experience of Christ’s life-changing love that they have had. I can see a church full of eagerly open-armed people. Do you know what I mean by eagerly open-armed? When a visitor comes into the sanctuary and asks, “Can I sit here?” we can say, “Sure,” and smile and then ignore that visitor for the rest of the service. Or we can say, “Sure,” and treat them as if their presence was an absolute delight to us, as if they were treasured family, as if they were honoring us by choosing to sit beside us. You see the difference—eagerly open-armed. Then I see a church that reaches out in compassion to those who are out of range of our voices and out of reach of our hands—from our doorstep to the ends of the earth. If we will live into that vision, then what we will achieve in the future will far outshine what we have done in the past and the best day will always be the current day. For the Lord of Hosts will fill our lives with discoveries and unmeasured possibilities.

Haggai was my kind of guy. He exhibits here the kind of impatience that has propelled my ministry for years. Other prophets pushed the rebuilding of the temple. The prophet Zechariah was zealous about getting the new temple going. The prophet Ezekiel cast a strong vision to help inspire the people to rebuild. But Haggai wants the work to begin today! Basically he is saying, “God is ready; are you?” The good old days—they are not something to remember, but something to anticipate.