Haggai, The Temple And Jesus, The Messiah Of The Temple

Friday of the 24th Week in Course 2025

The prophecies of Haggai are among the shortest in the OT, but because the author is careful about the historical notes in the book, we know a great deal about them. The second year of King Darius I Hystaspes, in our dating system, is 520 B.C. The prophecies are sharpshooter-targeted on the command to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, but they don’t recognize that the Temple had been completed, so we know that the Book dates between 520 and 515, when the Temple was rededicated.

Our reading today is from chapter 2. In the earlier chapter, Haggai told the Jews that they were having trouble doing more than keeping themselves alive, and that was because the Temple rebuilding was not a priority. Now the structure was taking shape, but to the oldest Jews, who had seen the Temple of Solomon in its glory, the new one was a pathetic nothing. Haggai told Governor Zerubbabel and high priest Joshua to “take courage.” He commands “take courage” then to the people of the land. God is with them, the Lord Sabaoth, just as when they, in their ancestors, came out of Egypt. The Spirit of the Lord is with them just as with Moses and the original Joshua leading them to the Promised Land. Then Haggai uses an agricultural analogy, inviting them to think of a sycamore-fig or olive tree being shaken for its fruit. He gives them a “thus says the Lord” and predicts: “One moment yet, a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will come in.”

The picture being evoked is the fulfillment of the whole destiny of Israel, in whom all the nations of earth would be blessed. That was the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Temple of Solomon was supposed to have pure worship, right worship of such clarity and beauty that it would draw all the nations to join in. But even in the time of Solomon, Israelite worship had been corrupted by worship of foreign gods. So, after hundreds of years of putting up with that, the Lord had scattered the Israelites among the nations. Haggai wants the returned Jews to regain that vision. And, of course, as the nations came to worship, they would bring lots of “bling” to the Jewish capital. “Greater will be the future glory of this house than the former, says the LORD of hosts; And in this place I will give you peace, says the LORD of hosts!” This is a prediction of the Messianic age that prophets saw in vision.

Our psalmist today is an exiled Levite living among deceitful and impious people. He is mourning his absence from the Lord’s presence and prays to be returned to the holy mount Zion, where he dreams of giving thanks on his harp with the songs of right worship.

Jesus, of course, was and is the promised Messiah. One time, in one of those rare moments of peace when He prayed with His disciples, Jesus asked them what the buzz among the less committed followers was—who did they think Jesus was? Reasonably, the disciples said a resurrected John the Baptist, Elijah or some other prophet. But He honed in on His most loyal followers: who do YOU say I am? Peter, leader of the band appointed by Christ, said “the Messiah of God.” In Matthew’s version of the event, we get a long prophecy of Jesus naming Peter as head of the apostolic college, but Luke truncates the story. You may recall that Luke is moving Jesus to Jerusalem with his apostles, so he cuts the story short and gives a prediction of the Messiah’s passion, death, and resurrection. That reality, for St. Paul and St. Luke, his evangelist, is the critical action of the Jesus Story.