Nov. 6 sermon Notes Haggai 1:15-2:9

Nov. 6

Hag. 1:15-2:9 Haggai urged the people to begin to restore the ruined temple. They are dispirited. “They have a hard enough time making ends meet. Haggai points out that they seem to be on a gerbil wheel, all of the money flows out of a pocket with holes, no matter how hard they work. Now they hear that both nature and economics are allied against them. They will get nowhere until the temple is restored.

When the work came to a close, it was a disappointment. I love the psychological realism of Haggai’s little book. This could be for a number of reasons: it did not measure up to the memories the few who recalled actually seeing it... At the very least, it probably lacked both the fine ornamentation that had been built into the temple and the quality of the workmanship was probably not up to standards of the time. Some of the exiles had seen glories, and this seemed small, cheap, disappointing in comparison to the glories they had seen. Even more likely, it could not compete with the memory of the imagination of those who described it.

Haggai pushes us to consider the vicissitudes of memory. As Bruce Springsteen says, we tend to idolize the “Glory Days,” and how the misty past grows golden with the passing years.” Part of the attraction of a high school reunion is to re-stimulate memories and relive important moments in a time of life when small things take on dramatic dimensions. Memory seems to burnish things, especially when we are making negative comparisons with the present. we know from social science studies that memory is not particularly accurate.Nostalgia-

At the same time, it is a book with careful attention to the setting of dates as memory can blur dates and events. If the people could recall the date of the destruction of the temple, they could also recount the date of its restoration. Airy spirituality can exist in the ether of abstract intentions, but biblical spirituality lives in the warp and woof of human history. For Christians, with our linkage of the divine and human in Jesus Christ, we live in this tension, or perhaps better, in the reconciliation of those two modes.-The people seem to feel as if all their work has been done on their own.

Just as the Creator could shake the very structure of the cosmos, God will shake down nations for tribute coming to the temple to make it a special place.A cosmic shakedown will provide treasure to flow into Judah. At 2:9 the aim is shalom: peace, security, well-being, prosperity.This type of promise is important for religious vitality. Is the faith looking only backward? As recent Rolling Stone article, "The Age of Fear," reports on the "terror management theory."  Eddie Guy writes, research has revealed, "that when people are reminded of their mortality ... they can become more prejudiced and more aggressive toward people with different worldviews." Apparently, we are easily shaken in mind and alarmed.
take courage, do not fear, don't be so easily shaken in mind or alarmed, because God is faithful and the God of the living and we are the living who belong to God, always.Resurrection is  surely coming and with it forgiveness, reconciliation and victory over all that threatens to overwhelm us, even death.how are we living in this age? actions of God only in the past? Is God with us now? Will God be present in the future? Is it possible that the future could contain something new, something better? How is God’s presence connected to that vision?