Faithful even in judgment

“When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests ... and the Levites ... took their places to praise the Lord....  With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: ‘He is good; his love to Israel endures forever.’  And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.  But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud ... while many others shouted for joy.”  Ezra 3:10-13

When God judges, there are consequences.  When God forgives, there is restoration.

How many times have we experienced restoration ourselves?  More to the point, how many times do we need to test and prove God’s faithfulness to restore?

Israel had been in exile for over 50 years when God moved in the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to build a temple for him.  Obeying the God of his captives, Cyrus extended an open invitation to any of the Jews scattered throughout his realm to “go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel ...”  (Now, there’s a mission trip for you!)

Having first built an altar for worship and sacrifice, the volunteers then got to work on the temple.  And when its foundation was laid, there erupted great ... emotion.  All shouted praises to God, but it then quickly became a matter divergent perspectives.  To the younger folks, the completed foundation was hope strengthened, vision sharpened, for they who had never known a temple for the God of Israel could now see it becoming a new reality.  But those who had been around to see Solomon’s temple, long since destroyed, now “wept aloud.”

Why?  Why the weeping in the presence of promise and hope fulfilled?  Was it nostalgia, a wistful yearning for days gone by, a fond embrace of what they once knew?  Was it pent-up pain released in these aged souls born into freedom, that bright light then dimmed by oppression and captivity?

Or did these broken, now-wise souls agonize over the rebellion that brought judgment to Israel and Judah in the first place?  If only they had honored God’s law and kept their ways pure!  What could have been had they not hardened their hearts to his voice!  If only they had not tried to reduce God to a knock-off brand in a Devil Wears Prada world.  And compartmentalizing their God in the name of social relevance?  What were they thinking?

Restoration didn’t need to be, for judgment didn’t need to happen.  The temple didn’t have to be razed, nor its foundation destroyed.  As God said through his prophet, Isaiah, long before the exile:  “To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’  All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations – a people who continually provoke me to my very face ... (Isaiah 65:1b-3a)”  Had they only listened!

Today’s temples look a lot like you and me, for every believer is “a temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19)”  And we temples are built on an immovable rock, “for no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:11)”  We will not be razed; our foundation will not be destroyed.  Which is encouraging, because we stand out in a culture where people still pursue their imaginations and provoke God to his face.

Amid the chaos and confusion, above the shriek and the shrill, may our world hear unmistakably the clear, assuring voice of God calling from and through his temples, “Here am I, here am I.”

[Read today's lesson, Ezra 3:7-13, in NIV or The Message.]