Day 15, 28 Feb.: Haggai 2.1-9

Haggai was a Hebrew prophet during the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, one of the twelve "minor" prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the author of the Book of Haggai. Along with Zechariah and Malachi he was the first of three post-exilic prophets from the Neo-Babylonian Exile of the House of Judah, who belonged to the period of Jewish history which began after the return from captivity in Babylon. Haggai is known for his prophecy in 520 BCE, commanding the Jews to rebuild the Temple.

Little is known of his personal history. He may have been one of the captives taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. Anyway, he began his ministry about sixteen years after the return of the Jews to Judah (ca. 520 BCE). The work of rebuilding the temple had been stopped through the intrigues of the Samaritans. After having been suspended for eighteen years, the work was resumed through the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah.They exhorted the people, which roused them from their lethargy, and induced them to take advantage of a change in the policy of the Persian government under Darius I.

Two things strike me in particular about this text. One is that Haggai's name, bizarrely, means "my holiday". What that has to do with the text and with Haggai's call to be a prophet, I do not know. But having consistently told readers and listeners about the importance of historical context I think I have been given an example of how God sometimes uses the scriptures in apparently random but significant ways. For the past year I have been coordinating a group of Indian and Australian writers who are together writing a simple textbook of ecotheology. It has been a difficult exercise, but we are making progress, and I have started to think that it would be best if the Indian editor and I were able to work  together for some days. The Indian editor is the Principal of one of India's most prestigious theological colleges; he is intensely busy! But tonight he wrote that he is free at a certain time immediately before my wife goes on holidays to India. And tonight I have been granted holidays and study leave sufficient for me to travel to India both to edit the book and to take holidays. 

That may not sound at all more than coincidental to you, but over the years I have learnt to catch the faint but unmistakeable whiff of God in events. "My holiday!" And my Indian colleague is not a prophet, but he is a Professor of Old Testament studies.

The other point I draw from this text is about dealing with disappointment. It must have been so dispiriting for the the returnee Jews to re-build their beloved Jerusalem's temple, wall and dwellings therein from the wreckage left after the Babylonians had sacked the city, knowing what it had once been like. Over one third of a century ago, I built a research laboratory in a leprosy hospital in southern India. Then I left and returned to Australia and a new life. A quarter of a century later I returned. The laboratory was gone. Where it had been was a rubbish tip. Similarly, several other buildings that had been in use when I lived there were now gone or dilapidated. the Lutheran church I had attended each Sunday was now rarely opened. Services were sparsely attended. The older Lutheran church in the original leprosarium was derelict.

Over the next few days, however, I slowly realised that new things were being done. The research laboratory was no longer needed, but the hospital was converted from a specialist leprosy hospital to a community hospital which admitted any with an illness. Given the stigma that surrounds leprosy that was a wrenching, but appropriate adjustment. And as I wandered around the streets of the town I once lived in I counted fully 14 new, small (about 300 members) pentecostal-style house churches.

""The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’”