December: Day 16: Holy Prophet Haggai

December: Day 16:
Holy Prophet Haggai
 
(On Zeal For the Adornment of God's Temples)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Prophet Haggai, whose memory is celebrated today, came forth into prophetic service soon after the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity (at the beginning of the sixth century B.C.). He reproached them for living in good houses and neglecting to complete the Temple of the Lord, which they had begun to restore upon their return from captivity.

"Thus says the Lord," the Prophet reports what was revealed to him by the Spirit: "This people say, 'The time has not yet come, the time to build the house of the Lord.' And is it time for you to live in your adorned houses, while this house lies desolate?"

“Therefore now thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.”

“You sow much, but reap little; you eat, but have not enough; you drink, but are not filled; you clothe yourself, but are not warmed. You look for much, but come to little; and that which you bring home, I will scatter. Why? says the Lord of hosts: Because of my house that lies desolate, while you run every man to his own house. Therefore the heavens are shut up, and do not give you dew, and the earth does not yield her increase.”

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.”

“Go up to the mountain, and bring timber, and build the house; and I will be pleased with it, and I will be glorified, says the Lord.”

"Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel (the governor of Judah), and Joshua the son of Jozadak (the high priest), and all the rest of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as one sent by the Lord their God. And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai said to the people, 'I am with you,' says the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel and Joshua, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people, so that they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts their God."

And the Lord encouraged all the people of the land: “I am with you!” He said to them through His prophet, “My covenant which I made with you when you came out of Egypt, and My Spirit remains among you: do not be afraid!”

“For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once more, and it will be soon, I will shake heaven and earth, sea and dry land; I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, and the glory of this latter house will be greater than the former, and in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts.”

II. From the message of the Holy Prophet Haggai, who, at the command of God, reproached the Jews for their lack of zeal in building and decorating the Temple of the true God in Jerusalem, you see, brethren, “how pleasing to God is our zeal for the building and adornment of the temples of God,” where we thank the Lord for His countless blessings to us, His sinful and unworthy servants, where in ecclesiastical hymns we glorify His ineffable qualities, where in prayer we ask for our needs and receive abundant blessings and feel the saving actions of God’s grace, calling us to holy salvation through the correction of our lives.

It is true that our God “does not live in temples made with hands, nor does He accept favors from the hands of men, demanding anything” (Acts 17:24). He says through the prophet: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine” (Ps. 49:12).

But the moral feeling of every person, if only he is truly pious and God-loving, draws him to feasible offerings for the benefit of the temple of the Lord.

a) Sometimes this feeling is a feeling of gratitude to God, who gives us life, breath, and everything (Acts 17:25). A man who truly loves God, conscious on the one hand of his unworthiness, and on the other, of the abundance and greatness of the blessings of the Creator, Who “has made a hedge about his house, both outward and inward, and blessed the works of his hands” (Job 1:10), is not satisfied with mere blessings to Christ, in the person of His least brethren; a grateful feeling draws him further, to the very throne of God! In the humility of a grateful heart, he asks the Lord with boldness and love: “What shall I render to the Lord for all, as He has repaid me?” (Ps. 115:3). It becomes unbearable for him if he himself “dwells in a house of cedar, and the ark of God stands in the midst of the tabernacle” (2 Samuel 7:2). Like Nehemiah, the heart of a God-loving man is compressed with sorrow at the sight of his own prosperity and the desolation of God's temples. This feeling of gratitude guided David and Solomon, Constantine and Helen and many other crowned heads and mighty men of the earth. The sublime in these holy men, who generously opened their hands to adorn the temples of the Lord - this feeling seems, so to speak, even higher, or at least more striking in those simple but God-loving people, who not "from abundance," but often "from deprivation, all the life that they have" (Luke 21:4), cast down at the foot of the altar of the Lord.

b) Sometimes the heart, grieving over the sins of youth and deeply aware of the vanity of all the comforts and pleasures of life, seeks consolation and relief, so to speak, at the feet of the Savior, and, like the sinful woman, exhausts its treasures to adorn the temples of the Lord.

c) Sometimes, love for the dwellings of God and the holiness of the temples, or that heavenly feeling which made David exclaim: “Lord, I have loved the beauty of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells” (Ps. 25:8), motivates a God-loving Christian to build the temples of the Lord.

Let us recall those words of the Savior, with which He justified the woman who anointed His feet with precious ointment: this justification (Matt. 26:9 et seq.), solemnly pronounced by Him before the apostles, gives us to understand that every offering of a believer, made with love for the Lord, cannot but be pleasing and acceptable before Him, for He looks not at the thing itself that is brought, but at the heart of the one bringing it: the two mites of a poor widow were a very meager and considered insignificant offering to the rich and magnificent Temple of Jerusalem; but in the eyes of the All-Seeing, they were incomparably higher than all the treasures of the vain Pharisees, because they were donated out of rare love and zeal for God. Likewise, if any of us, out of zeal, love, or gratitude to God, sacrifices from his possessions to the altar of the Lord: can it be that this sacrifice of a grateful and God-loving heart would not be pleasing and acceptable before Him Who does not “despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19) and Who, in the words of Saint Chrysostom, “accepts the works, as he greets the endeavor; honors the deed, and the intent He commends?” A rich father who has not yet reached old age does not need his children, who have already reached old age, to make offerings to him from the property they have acquired, but he is pleased if they do this, because in these actions he sees signs of their love and zeal for him. Likewise, the heavenly Father has no need of our sacrifices, but looks with favor on them if they are expressions of our zeal, gratitude and love for Him. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). In the Old Testament, the law, although not directly, obliged every elderly Jew to donate annually to the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem a small sum (Lev. 27:12, 14); but Jesus Christ did not impose such an obligation on His followers, but left it to the will and zeal of each. However, during the days of His earthly life, as the Son of Man, He also contributed His stater to the house of God (Matt. 17:27), and He did not stop the Pharisees, no matter how hypocritical and deceitful they were, from the good custom of contributing tithes to the house of God - He only exposed their lack of truth, mercy and faith. He said about their offerings themselves: "These things you should do and not leave them alone" (Matt. 23:23).

III. Years will pass, centuries will fly by, not only our names will be forgotten, but even our graves themselves, all memory of us will disappear in the stream of centuries and generations; but if, in the days of our earthly life, we opened our hands to the best of our ability to do good to the temples of God, then the Holy Church will never forget this. Every time a propitiatory sacrifice is raised on the altar of the Lord, it itself will implore the Lord and its Master, and will arouse all its children present to diligent prayer for the creators and benefactors of the holy temples of God!

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.