Construction Workers

It has never been a one-man project.  The building of the temple, I mean.

The Book of Ezra…

The king of Persia issues a decree allowing the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the altar and the temple.  This Cyrus was not a man of The Holy God of Israel.  (It’s amazing who works in your favor when God engineers your circumstances.) Anyway, these exiles had been taken captive and had their holy place pillaged by that king of Babylon, Nebucha-what’s-his-name.  Now they are going back.  Returning.  Rebuilding.  There was Zerubbabel.  There was Ezra and later Nehemiah. But there  were others.  Thousands of others.

I was struck by how many people the project of rebuilding required.  I mean, hey, this was no weekend side-gig. Round up the jocks from the remnant and throw some stones together.  Quite the contrary.  The exiles settled, they gathered supplies, they planned, they assembled.  This was a long endeavor.  This was a communal endeavor.  Carpenters, masons, musicians…(oh my!)  The dwelling place of the Most High is too grand for two hands.

And yet somehow we ourselves, as temples of the Living God, undertake our building and rebuilding on our own.  Here’s the thing. The book of Ezra is historical. It’s not allegorical.  It’s not metaphorical. But it does provide some powerful imagery concerning the temple.  Do we notice how much manpower the rebuilding of the temple demanded?   May I suggest that building temples is no less communal now than it was then!  I’m not talking about constructing church buildings;  I’m talking about our lives.  All of our talk about “Christian community”…It’s not just about having like-minded friends.  It’s not just about sharing prayer requests over Starbucks lattes.  Why do we need community?  Why is this work communal?  Because the work of a holy place is arduous and requires a multiplicity of skills that no one man possesses. It is not work we can do on our own.

As I examine my life today, I see the lack.  A lack of diligent workers who will convene with unified purpose to help build me, this temple of the Living God.  My prayer today is that God would bring people into my life (and carry me into others’ lives) that will dirty their hands  in the task of rebuilding me as a holy dwelling place for my God.