The Latter Splendor

What good is nostalgia? Not so fast. Think about it for a moment. We can be quick to toss aside what came before. Surely there is value in looking back. There is some comfort in remembering what used to be. True, we can get caught up in it, living in the past and losing track of the present, let alone the future. Nostalgia, like most things, can become an idol. But healthy attention to the past can help us understand the legacy in which we stand, and we can face the future unafraid. At least, that is the hope.

That thought exercise was so that we can ask, “Was Haggai a proponent of nostalgia in our text for this week? Is Haggai looking back to what used to be when he wonders if anyone remembers the former glory of the temple, now standing in ruin before them?” Some scholars wonder if the prophet himself remembers and is inviting others to join him in the reminiscence. It’s hard to say, and there is little that we know about Haggai himself. However, there is something about the power of the past that Haggai hopes to use to envision the future and encourage the present.

“Yet now take courage,” Haggai declares to the governor as he sets to work on the building of the temple (Haggai 2:4 NRSV). The task will be difficult and maybe full of tears as the people remember what was lost and the suffering endured in exile. But take courage, the prophet declares, because you are not alone. That’s the overriding message of the text for this week. You are not alone. “I am with you, says the Lord of Hosts” (Haggai 2:4 NRSV).

That information is sorely needed because the task at hand is difficult, and struggles will come. A whole lot of “shaking going on” is on the horizon. The filling of the temple will involve some struggle, though that isn’t explicitly spelled out here. Maybe there is a conflict with those who stole the riches of the temple. Maybe it is the shaking of the populace required in any major capital campaign. It is hard to say. But this isn’t going to be a walk in the park.

Yet, “take courage,” says the prophet. God is in control. God is the architect of the vision and the author of this new story, and the future is brighter than the past. “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:9 NRSV). Indeed, each rebuilding brought expansion, beauty, and value to the temple. So, Haggai serves as the site manager, holding the plans up for all the workers to see, and each recognizes the wonder of the temple, so they can build with new energy and enthusiasm.

Is that the role of the prophet? Is he really focused on stone and mortar, carving and etching? Or is something deeper going on here? Let’s take another look at the speech to Governor Zerubbabel and the workers on the job site and ask again, “Where does the glory reside?” When Haggai asks if anyone saw the temple before it was destroyed and then asks what they see before them now, he might be declaring that they have lost the vision of the purpose of the temple. When he says, “Is it not in your sight as nothing?” he might be telling them that they are too wrapped up in buildings, in stone and mortar. In the next few verses, Haggai reminds them that God has not forsaken the promise to be present with them, even though the building is in ruins. He doesn’t say, “Once you rebuild, then I can come back and be with you.” No, he repeatedly says, “God is present.” Still present. Fully present. Even when we stand in the rubble of our hopes and dreams, God is present. Even when it seems that the promises of the past are far from us in these troubled times, God is present. Even when the task before us seems greater than our strength and resources allow, God is present.

At the end, when Haggai points to the future, telling his hearers that the latter splendor of this house will be greater than the former, what house is he thinking of? Standing on the job site, with the plans for the temple around them and the ruined structure in need of repair, he is speaking of the temple itself, the house of the Lord. Unless his vision is bigger than the structure. The house where God resides is not just the building they call the temple. We might even say it is only the temple when it is filled with the people of God. The house the prophet calls them to see is the nation, the chosen, the people among whom God abides. Haggai says they have lost sight of who they are. They are wrapped up in their building and not in their being and doing.

During the pandemic, many churches and communities of faith lost their way or perhaps their identities because they were unable to gather in person. Some of these communities have never fully recovered from that time and are shells of their former glory. Others saw the opportunity to be reminded that the church is not the building but the people at work in various ways in the community and their own homes, and that God was present with them in that work. The glory was in the doing and the being, not in the structure. The theologian Leonard Sweet, in a podcast, declared that perhaps the pandemic was good for the church in that it might help us get over our “edifice complex.” Maybe Haggai, even as he was helping to direct the rebuilding of the temple after exile, was sounding the same note.

What are we building in the end? Better structures for doing the work of ministry? There are good reasons for creating space for all sorts of activities. As human beings, we need places of beauty and wonder that will draw us into a deeper experience of God and God’s presence in our lives and our world. But Haggai would have us remember that the building will serve its purpose only when the people are creating space for God in their doing and being, in their thinking and dreaming. That is the latter splendor Haggai hopes for, a community of faith that allows space for God’s glory to shine through them and from them. May it be so.