Minor Prophets 10: Haggai
You Can Read and Understand...the Minor Prophets • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 15:05
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3. Haggai encourages Judah to rebuild the temple . . .
2. . . . because this was the place the true temple, Jesus, would come . . .
1. . . . to sit on the throne of the kingdom of God forever.
Haggai’s Temple Is a Prophecy of the True Temple, who Is Our King.
Sermon
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. (Hag 1:7–9)
As we work our way through the minor prophets, we remember that they’re called “minor” because they’re short, not because they’re unimportant. Today’s minor prophet is the tenth of twelve. How do we pronounce his name? Is it HAE-gai? Is it HAG-ee-ahy, or what?
Well, not knowing for sure, I went to the fountain of all knowledge for help, the internet. There I found several short audios of people pronouncing the prophet’s name, but they were all done by English speakers. So I skipped them and found one by a native Israeli Hebrew speaker. Here’s how he said it: khah-GAHY. You sound like you’re clearing your throat on that first syllable, but you place the emphasis on the second. Try it. Doesn’t it feel satisfying to say his name that way, khah-GAHY?
What’s Haggai mean, anyway? Well, it means “festivity” or “festival.” Somehow, I can’t picture Haggai enjoying himself at Oktoberfest in Bavaria—or any of the prophets having a good time anywhere, for that matter. None of them seems like someone you’d want to have a beer with and swap jokes. But, oddly enough, if the people of Judah followed Haggai’s instructions, there would definitely be a celebration.
His book is short, just two chapters. You can read it in less time than it takes to hear this sermon. But preachers have a need to clarify, to expound and to apply. And I’m no different, so here goes.
3.
Here’s the scene. It’s about 520 BC. The people of Judah had been exiled to Babylon, but now Cyrus, King of Persia, has allowed them to go home to Jerusalem. Once home, the people quickly set about rebuilding their homes and farms. In a burst of optimism, and with approval from the Persian king, they also begin rebuilding the temple. But just as quickly as they start, they quit and concentrate instead on their own homes and farms.
But no matter how hard they work, their harvests are small, their flocks and herds aren’t growing, they don’t have enough clothes to keep warm, and they’re always hungry. What’s the problem? Haggai brings them the answer from the Lord: “My house . . . lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house” (Hag 1:9). Serving and obeying Yahweh is not the people’s priority. Serving themselves is. The result is that though they work hard, no one is prospering.
And they won’t prosper until the governor, Zerubbabel, takes the lead and gets things moving on rebuilding the temple. That’s Haggai’s message. His preaching, and that of his friend Zechariah, is effective. The governor gets the message, and so does the high priest, Joshua. They and all the people fear the Lord and begin again to work on the house of God.
Unlike Zephaniah, Haggai isn’t all sour grapes. He’s not all gloom and doom. Haggai manages to be optimistic; he weaves in much more Gospel. To be sure, there’s some initial cajoling, but Haggai is actually very encouraging. Here are some of the encouragements Haggai hands out during his locker-room speech:
“I am with you, declares the Lord.” (Hag 1:13)
Be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. (Hag 2:4–5)
Haggai goes on to explain that the house they are building isn’t just any house. It’s a special place with a special blessing for those who come to it. “In this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts” (Hag 2:9). As soon as the work begins again, as soon as the workmen start laying down the stone, “from this day on I will bless you,” promises the Lord (Hag 2:19).
2.
But there’s more going on here than just putting up a building and feeling good about it. Haggai speaks of this new temple, this holy place, as figuring into the events of the Day of the Lord, though he doesn’t use that term. He uses the language of God’s ultimate triumph in the Last Days.
In a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. (Hag 2:6–7)
At some time in the future, cataclysmic events in the heavens, the oceans, and on the land will occur, and the nations will stream to the temple of the Lord, bringing their homage and treasure. When might that be?
Well, we Christians understand this begins with the incarnation of Jesus Christ. When the infant Jesus was just forty days old, guess where his parents brought him? In keeping with the laws God had given Israel fifteen centuries before, precisely according to divine plan, Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple for the presentation of the firstborn son to the Lord. Exactly as Haggai had prophesied, the treasure of all nations came into the temple and the Lord filled the house with glory. And notice, it wasn’t the house itself that was glorious. The glory is what filled the house. For the all-glorious King of kings born in Bethlehem had come into the house.
Five centuries after Haggai, and three decades after his first appearance in the temple, without permission from the priests, this same Jesus drove the money changers and sellers of animals out of the temple of God. Angry leaders demanded that he give them some sign, some token of his authority to do this. Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The leaders didn’t get it at all. They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But Jesus was speaking about the real temple of God, his body (Jn 2:19–21).
In Jesus, God came to his temple. Literally, during his conversation with the priests, the divine Son of God was standing on the grounds of a building devoted to the worship of Yahweh. But more important, God had come personally in Jesus Christ. Jesus himself was the true temple of God. Soon, all nations would come to this personal temple, either in faith or as defeated foes on the Last Day, when “every knee should bow . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10–11).
On Monday of Holy Week, Jesus cleansed the temple—probably for a second time. On Good Friday, as Jesus died on the cross, strange things happened. The sky turned dark. There was an earthquake, and the temple curtain ripped down the middle. And before the day was over, the first of the nations would come to Jesus, the temple of God in human form. A Roman soldier would observe the events of that day, see how Jesus died, and confess, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Mt 27:54). Now we are those nations saved by the temple of Jesus’ crucified body.
1.
But we’re not done yet with the encouragement and Gospel promises of Haggai. There’s this strange promise to Zerubbabel at the end of this little book:
On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts. (Hag 2:23)
A signet ring is a symbol of authority and power given by a king to another ruler. Zerubbabel was a descendant of David through Jeconiah, Judah’s last king. Was Yahweh declaring Zerubbabel the Messiah, the new king in David’s line? No, that couldn’t be, since Jeremiah had prophesied that no son of Jeconiah would ever sit on David’s throne (Jer 22:30).
But one day, a descendant of David and his grandsons would! Here’s Haggai’s promise to Zerubbabel as it’s fulfilled in Matthew’s genealogy: “And after the deportation to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of . . . ,” and ten names later we arrive at “Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ” (Mt 1:12–16).
So maybe Zerubbabel didn’t realize it, but part of Haggai’s encouragement to finish rebuilding the temple was a very special promise to him that, in so doing, he would be part of the salvation story, becoming an ancestor of Joseph, whose wife, Mary, would be the mother of Christ. In Jesus, the Son of God and the adopted son of Joseph, a king in the line of David sits on the throne of the kingdom of God forever.
Over the years, many church building committees have turned to Haggai and Zechariah to whip up support for repairing the church or building a new one. I’d love to see our church building and grounds put back in tip-top, perfectly maintained condition, but that’s not what Haggai and rebuilding the temple is about.
Haggai’s Temple Is a Prophecy of the True Temple, Who Is Our King.
For you and me, building the temple is about hearing the Gospel with faith, trusting in Jesus as our Savior and King, and letting his Holy Spirit renovate and renew our hearts. When that’s the building program we’re part of, God’s blessings pour forth in abundance.
We pray: Thank you, God, for my family, my home, and my job, but may they never become so important that I neglect your true temple, Jesus Christ, and his Church, where your Spirit dwells. In his name. Amen.