Word of Salvation – Vol. 46 No.22 – June 2001

Small Beginnings

Sermon by Rev J De Jongh

on Ezra 3:7-13

Scripture Readings: Ezra 3:1-13; Zechariah 4

Suggested Hymns: BoW: 195; 29:1-3,5; 359; 136A; 241

Beloved in the Lord.

As you think of the remnant of Israel returning to the Promised Land, you can almost sense the expectation that they brought back with them.  Some of them had been in captivity for fifty years or more, but finally they were going to return to their homeland.  They had memories of what things had been like before they left, and they were ready to put their noses to the grindstone and restore Israel to its former glory.  Others had been born in captivity.  They'd never seen the land of Israel.  But with each description of the milk and honey that flowed from the land, the milk grew whiter and the honey grew more abundant.  They couldn't wait to see it for themselves.

And they'd been given a mandate to rebuild God's temple and begin worshipping Him again – the very thing they wanted to do.  Some of them could remember the splendour of Solomon's temple and looked forward to being a part of renewing that splendour again.  They hadn't been able to offer sacrifices to God for the past fifty years or more.  They were aching to again offer Him bulls and goats so that their sins might once again be atoned for.

And in all of this they saw God's faithfulness.  God had promised through Jeremiah that after seventy years of captivity they would be returned to their homeland.  And here they were on their way home.  He had promised through Ezekiel that in the same way that He had left the temple, He would one day return.  And plans were now in hand to rebuild the temple.  God was in the process of once again keeping His promises.  And they were ready to thank and praise Him for all that He was doing.

1.  The Importance of Small Beginnings

As you look at these early chapters of Ezra, you notice that they're all about new beginnings.  Chapter 1 is about the Persian king Cyrus decreeing that the temple should be rebuilt, and that any Israelites who so wished could return home.  Chapter 2 gives the list of those exiles that did return.  Chapter 3 begins with the rebuilding of the altar.  And the passage that we are looking at covers the beginning of the rebuilding of the temple.  The book of Ezra is about new beginnings.

The rebuilding of the altar was important because of the importance of the sacrificial system.  Through Moses God had dictated a system of sacrifices through which Israel could know that their sins were forgiven.  But they hadn't been able to offer these sacrifices throughout the time of their captivity.  Of prime importance was the restoration of the altar so that sacrifices could be offered once again.  And so the altar was rebuilt relatively quickly.

It's a bit like coming home from holidays.  No matter how late it may be, or how tired you are from the trip, some things just need to be done before you can roll into bed.  Maybe the kids need to be fed and put to bed first.  Maybe some things need to be unpacked, like sheets and pyjamas.  Everything else can wait till tomorrow, but those things at least need to be done.  And rebuilding the altar was one of those things that needed to be done straight away.  It was of primary importance to the returning Jews.

But their mandate was to rebuild the whole temple, not just the altar.  And so that came a close second in importance.  The temple was important because it was the special dwelling place of God.  It was God's palace on earth.  It was the sign that God dwelt among Israel in a special way.  When the tabernacle and later the temple had been dedicated to God, He had visibly filled them with His glory so that Israel could know that God dwelt among them in a way that no other nation could boast of.  It was the special dwelling place of God on earth.

I suppose the temple was like Buckingham Palace in Britain, or the White House in the United States.  The Queen or the President of the time might regularly travel throughout the country or overseas.  They might have a number of residences scattered around the country.  They may even spend more time away from the palace or White House than at them.  But these places are the special dwellings of these leaders.  They remind the world that there is a leader in those countries.  And in the same way, so did the temple.

And so the early part of the book of Ezra is focussed on the rebuilding of the temple.  The early years after the return to the Promised Land were concerned with the one great enterprise of rebuilding God's palace on earth.  Cyrus commissions the rebuilding in Chapter 1.  The rebuilding begins in Chapter 3.  There is opposition to the rebuilding in Chapters 4 to 6 by the surrounding residents.  Chapter 5 speaks of encouragement received from the prophets Haggai and Zechariah because the people were getting slack in their commitment.  And finally in Chapter 6 the temple is finished and dedicated to God.  That means, too, that from a couple of years after their return, and for the next twenty years to its completion, their most important task was the restoration of the temple.

And this restoration was a fulfilment of God's promises.  Through Isaiah, God had promised that Cyrus would be His shepherd who would accomplish what He wanted.  Cyrus would say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."  And here in Chapter 3 of Ezra the foundations are described as being laid.  God is a God who keeps his promises.  Even when things are looking grim, even when it looks like God's promises can't possibly be fulfilled, they can be trusted.  Even in the tough times we can continue to stand on the promises of God.

But this temple was also a foreshadowing of an even greater temple.  Zechariah was one of the prophets who brought God's word to these post-exilic people.  He prophesied about someone whose name would be "the Branch".  Zechariah said, "It is he who will build the temple of the LORD, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne."  Isaiah 11 tells us that this branch is the descendant of Jesse: Jesus Christ.

And as we read into the New Testament, we find that He Himself is the cornerstone of this temple that He builds.  Through faith in all that He's done for us, we, the people of God, are the living stones that make it up.  Jesus lived and died and rose again from the dead so that by believing in Him we might be the building blocks in the temple that He builds out of God's people.  The temple that we read about here points forward to the temple made up of God's people.  It points to Jesus as the builder of that temple.

As the Israelites begin to rebuild this temple, though, one thing you notice is an emphasis on continuity with the past.  They weren't seeking to do something new.  They were seeking to continue where they had left off before the captivity, except this time the hope was that they would be more faithful to God than then.  And so there's quite a comparison between the way they do things here, and the way Solomon did things when he built the original temple.  They have the same barter arrangement with the Phoenicians that Solomon used.  They use the same schedule.  He also began in the 2nd month, after the harvest and festivals were over and at the beginning of the dry season.

And they also continue the three offices of the past, prophet, priest and king.  Zerubbabel is the civil leader here, in the line of David and ancestor of Jesus, even if not officially the king.  Jeshua, which is the same name as Joshua, is the priest.  And later Haggai and Zechariah are the prophets who bring God's immediate word to the people.  And, as before, the priests and Levites serve God in the temple.  And because the temple isn't yet built, they oversee the work of its construction.

2.  Praising God for Small Beginnings

And what exuberance and excitement there is when the foundation is laid.  The first stage of the construction is finished.  A milestone has been reached.  It calls for a celebration.

It's something people like to do, isn't it, acknowledge milestones with celebration?  We do it at birthdays, anniversaries, New Years' Eves, at the end of each century, and millennium.  If a milestone has been reached, if another stage of history has been achieved, we all think it's a good time to stop and celebrate.

And so did the folk here.  But they celebrate more than just the first stage of the temple completed.  They celebrate God's goodness and faithfulness.  They celebrate the covenant love of God for His people, a love that lasts forever and was the basis of His bringing them back home to the Promised Land at all.

And once again the way they do it stresses continuity with the past.  Things of the past aren't necessarily things to put behind us.  They celebrate in the same way that Israel did when the first temple was completed.  It's described in 2nd Chronicles 5.  Musicians playing.  People singing that God is good; his love endures forever - applying the words of Psalm 136 to their particular situation.

But there are contrasts to that celebration, too.  Here there is no Ark of the Covenant.  There is no visible glory of God filling the temple.  In fact there isn't even a temple.  There are only beginnings, and small beginnings at that.  But the people could see progress, and they praised God for that progress.

And can't we praise and thank God for all that He's doing today, too, for all that He's doing through us?  Over the past couple of years there's been talk about the struggles that we have in our particular denomination.  Numbers are declining.  Some churches are splitting or leaving.  Some churches are struggling to fill empty pulpits.  And yet if we only think about those things, aren't we ignoring the many positive expressions of God's goodness and everlasting love that are just as apparent?

Maybe we need to seek to address some of these problems, but God continues to use our churches.  He continues to bless us and use us for His purposes.  Members continue to grow in faith and service to Him and each other.  There are problems, but there are also demonstrations of God's goodness and love for us.  And we can also thank and praise Him for that.  Maybe in some ways they also look like small beginnings.  But who said small beginnings weren't worthy of our thanks and celebration.

3.  Expecting God's Blessing for the Future

And yet, as we see from this passage, too, those of Israel who had seen Solomon's temple before it was destroyed had trouble praising God for these small beginnings.  It seems to be the same for every project.  Every project has its optimistic, enthusiastic, champions, and those who can only see the glories of the past, or the great things that others are doing.

There's a retirement village in Queensland.  And I can remember when that retirement village was only individual bricks that were being sold to those who would get behind the concept.  There was no money, no block of land, no board to oversee the project, in fact there was absolutely nothing to show for the village except those bricks that were slowly being sold to those who would support the concept.  But today there's a retirement village.  And I'm sure that other retirement villages probably started in a similar way.  So did the Christian Schools.  And maybe even this church.

And this disappointment that the Israelites had over small beginnings was something that grew over time.  Haggai had to preach against it in his prophecy.  He asked, "Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory?  How does it look to you now?  Does it not seem to you like nothing?  But now be strong...  For 'lam with you', declares the Lord Almighty."

Zechariah preached against it, too.  He asked, "Who despises the day of small things?  Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.”  Despite the small beginnings, they were nothing to be disillusioned over.

And as a local church we, too, need to be careful not to look back at what we might consider to be the glories of the past and discount what God is doing with us today.  Isn't it far better to look with expectation to what God has in store for us in the future, than look only at what He's done in the past and miss what He's doing today?  And we don't know what God's plans for the future are.  But if we look forward with enthusiasm and expectation to seeing them worked out in this church and in our lives, if we willingly offer ourselves to be a part of His plan, then we'll see them come about, and we will be a part of them.  Otherwise we might find that they have passed us by, or maybe come to a standstill for a time.

God will do what He will do.  But we might find that because we were looking in the wrong direction we missed being a part of it.  Or, as with the returned exiles, we might find that something that could have been done much more quickly ends up taking twenty years to come to completion.  Maybe they could have enjoyed a completed temple fifteen years earlier if only they had enthusiastically applied themselves to the task at hand.

Conclusion

So what are the expectations that we can have of God as we willingly seek to live for Him?  As we live out lives of service, can't we expect to be built up as the body of Christ?  Can't we expect greater unity in faith and knowledge?  Can't we expect greater maturity?  Can't we expect greater stability in our faith?

Can't we expect to see others come to faith?  Can't we expect to see these new converts also grow in faith and commit themselves to God's commandments?  Can't we expect to see God use them also to bring others to faith?  Isn't that something that we can look forward to enthusiastically and commit ourselves to wholeheartedly?  Isn't that something that we can thank and praise God for, even if at times what we see now may look like small beginnings?

Let's praise God, because He is a God who keeps His promises.

Amen.