Proper 27 / Pentecost 25 / Ordinary Time 32
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
-- Haggai 2:5b
Those who lived in exile had returned to find their land in ruins and the people living in poverty. While in exile, they clung to the hope of returning and once more living in "a land of milk and honey." How do you go on when all the visible signs of hope have been shattered? Haggai was very specific about the time of his vision. It was the second year, the seventh month, the twenty-first day of the month. There was this specific moment in the midst of the utter despair of the people when Haggai felt compelled to speak to the remnants of leadership, the governor and the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. He recalled the former glory and was blunt about the bleak image of the present.
"How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?" It was at the point when there was no reason to have confidence in the future that Haggai called for them to have courage. The courage was not based on anything except faith that the God who had promised to fulfill them in the past would be faithful to them in the future. A continuing theme of scripture from Abraham to Jesus is that nothing is impossible for God (Genesis 18:14; Luke 1:37).
Repeatedly the people of faith experienced the loss of all the signs of human control so that they might once again learn to find their hope in God. It was when they found themselves in utter hopelessness that they heard again, "My spirit abides among you; do not fear." It is the presence of this mystery that gives us the courage to keep moving when all around us there are only signs of despair.
-- Haggai 2:5b
Those who lived in exile had returned to find their land in ruins and the people living in poverty. While in exile, they clung to the hope of returning and once more living in "a land of milk and honey." How do you go on when all the visible signs of hope have been shattered? Haggai was very specific about the time of his vision. It was the second year, the seventh month, the twenty-first day of the month. There was this specific moment in the midst of the utter despair of the people when Haggai felt compelled to speak to the remnants of leadership, the governor and the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. He recalled the former glory and was blunt about the bleak image of the present.
"How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?" It was at the point when there was no reason to have confidence in the future that Haggai called for them to have courage. The courage was not based on anything except faith that the God who had promised to fulfill them in the past would be faithful to them in the future. A continuing theme of scripture from Abraham to Jesus is that nothing is impossible for God (Genesis 18:14; Luke 1:37).
Repeatedly the people of faith experienced the loss of all the signs of human control so that they might once again learn to find their hope in God. It was when they found themselves in utter hopelessness that they heard again, "My spirit abides among you; do not fear." It is the presence of this mystery that gives us the courage to keep moving when all around us there are only signs of despair.
