December 13, 2015: Rebuilding the Temple

Ezra 1:1-4, 3:1-4, 10-13

1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia’s rule, to fulfill the Lord’s word spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Persia’s King Cyrus. The king issued a proclamation throughout his kingdom (it was also in writing) that stated:

² Persia’s King Cyrus says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. ³ If there are any of you who are from his people, may their God be with them! They may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem. ⁴ And as for all those who remain in the various places where they are living, let the people of those places supply them with silver and gold, and with goods and livestock, together with spontaneous gifts for God’s house in Jerusalem

3 When the seventh month came and the Israelites were in their towns, the people gathered together as one in Jerusalem. ² Then Jeshua, Jozadak’s son along with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son along with his kin, started to rebuild the altar of Israel’s God so that they might offer entirely burned offerings upon it as prescribed in the Instruction from Moses the man of God. ³ They set up the altar on its foundations,^[b] because they were afraid of the neighboring peoples,^[c] and they offered entirely burned offerings upon it to the Lord, both the morning and the evening offerings.

⁴ They celebrated the Festival of Booths, as prescribed. Every day they presented the number of entirely burned offerings required by ordinance for that day.

¹⁰ When the builders laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple, the priests clothed in their vests and carrying their trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, arose to praise the Lord according to the directions of Israel’s King David. ¹¹ They praised and gave thanks to the Lord, singing responsively, “He is good, his graciousness for Israel lasts forever.”

All of the people shouted with praise to the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid. ¹² But many of the older priests and Levites and heads of families, who had seen the first house, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this house, although many others shouted loudly with joy. ¹³ No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, because the people rejoiced very loudly. The sound was heard at a great distance.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Introduction

Are there important buildings in your life? Places that are significant, special or even sacred?  I have stood in many wonderful houses of worship over the years from the grandest (Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome wins that prize, even for this Lutheran) to the most simple (no one particular place comes to mind here).  I’ve also stood in “normal,” or mundane spaces that have been converted into sacred places: classrooms, forest glades, or sidewalks that have been turned into places of worship.  But whether it’s the grandest cathedral or the smallest chapel, we humans have special relationships with specific spaces.

While the promise and relationship between God and God’s people hadn’t ended with the exile, there was something special (“holy”) about their homeland, the city of David and the places where they had worshiped the LORD for generations.  When they are given the chance to return to that place, it was a time of great significance and it marks another stage in the story of God and God’s people.

The Technical Stuff

The people of Judah were in exile in Babylon for approximately fifty years before they were caught up in another drama on the world stage.  The Babylonian Empire that had conquered them was in turn conquered by Cyrus of Persia in 539 B.C.E. When it comes to empires, there’s always a “bigger fish” out there. It reminds me of the movie Gunfight at the O.K. Corral where Wyatt Earp tells a young man “I learned one rule about gunslingers, there's always a man faster on the draw than you are, and the more you use a gun, the sooner you're gonna run into that man.” Babylon ran into a “faster draw” and his name was Cyrus.

Cyrus was the most powerful man in the world and he was extremely intelligent as well. He allowed many of the exiled people in Babylon to return to their original homelands. This made him extremely popular and also created a huge number of people who owed him everything they had. The authors of the Bible saw God at work in what Cyrus was doing.  As Cyrus decreed that they could go home, they saw that the promises of comfort and a return from exile coming true.  The story of that return is found in the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Interestingly life was not easy for the returning exiles. If they thought that they’d be able to “ride into the sunset” and live “happily ever after” they were in for disappointment.

They had been gone for approximately fifty years and their new neighbors were understandably unhappy to have these exiles elbowing in on their territory. Jerusalem was a ruin, the Temple (God’s house) was in shambles.  Before the exile, the people of Judah had believed that the Temple was the actual, literal house of God: the location where God lived. It held the Ark of the Covenant, which had been moved to Jerusalem so many years ago by King David. The Ark had winged cherubim, which the people believed was the literal throne of God.  The destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C.E. had been an excruciatingly terrible spiritual and psychological blow to Judah. For it to be rebuilt and rededicated was of immense importance. The Ark of the Covenant was gone, lost to history (apparently waiting for Indiana Jones save it from the Nazis according to the wonderful, exciting and completely FICTIONAL movie Raiders of the Lost Ark) but the Temple was still a very special place. 

While the exiles returned in the first few years after 539, the Temple was not completed until 515 B.C.E., while Cyrus’s grandson Darius was the Emperor of Persia.  Our story today tells how the people made burnt offerings to the LORD, celebrated festivals and did other things in accordance with the “Instruction from Moses.” They were able to take up parts of their relationship with the LORD. It must have been a very moving, emotional moment. No wonder some people cried, others celebrated and all of them shouted praise to God. 

What Does this Say to Us?

We all have buildings and places that are important, even sacred, to us. They can bring us closer to God and each other.  The Temple was certainly important to Jesus: he visited it with his family according the “Instruction of Moses” (Luke 2:22, 41) and was extremely angry when he saw being misused by merchants and moneychangers: “It’s written, My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a hideout for crooks.’” (Luke 19:46) His followers continued to go there to worship and pray after he had ascended into heaven (Acts 2:46 and 3:1) The Temple was important, it was sacred and special. But God is not limited to Temples, walls or certain “sacred” spaces. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, once again, in 70 C.E. by the Romans and has not been rebuilt. 

For us today, our worship spaces are important and should receive good care, but they are only a means to an end, not the end itself. Jesus tells us that where two or more are gathered in his name he is there (Matt. 18:20) and that “I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.” (Matt. 28:20) May our buildings keep us close to God, not take the place of God. May they help us remember God’s promise, stay in relationship with God through Jesus Christ and have life in Jesus’ name.