watch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE3Lmw8DDMM&t=2233s
Sunday,
January 24, 2021
Prior to 2020, an ongoing debate between my wife and me
had to do with handwashing and the transmission of germs. She is maniacal, no, not maniacal;
committed! That’s the right word,
committed. Long before anyone ever said the words “COVID-19,” my wife Candy was
committed to fighting germs. In her
world, “Good morning” is something you say after you’ve confirmed everyone has
indeed washed their hands.
A year into the COVID-19 situation, she wins the
debate. We all need to be committed to
hand-washing and stopping the spread of the virus, a contagion unlike anything we’ve
ever seen. Interestingly, the Biblical
prophet Haggai deals with the issue of what can be caught and what cannot be
caught.
In chapter 1 Haggai established the necessity of rebuilding
the Jerusalem temple that had been destroyed when exile began. Haggai and Zechariah come along after the
exile with the message that it is time once again for Israel to answer call to
live as God’s people through whom God will reveal Himself to the world.
Recall the Torah, the law, specifically Leviticus 19:2.
“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” That law had not changed in 520 BC, Haggai’s
day. Israel was once again called to be holy.
The first order of business was to rebuild the temple. This work would signal to the people of
Israel and the surrounding nations that worship was the central, organizing
activity around which community life revolved.
Haggai’s prodding got the work started, but then what? Once they completed the temple, what would daily
life be like for God’s people after exile?
This question confronts everyone who believes in Jesus
and follows him as Lord. When gentiles
realize we are ‘in Christ’ we understand that we too are a part of the people
of God. The command “be holy” applies to
the way we live. Jesus says, in the
Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew
5:48). Also, in that sermon, “Seek first
the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Answering this divine call to holiness
determines the direction of our lives.
Is it possible?
Can we “be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect?” Is it just a pipe dream to suppose we can be holy? Haggai addresses this. After he has inspired the people to overcome
their fears and begin the temple work, he hints at what must be the foundation
of life lived under God and in relationship with God.
“Ask the priests,” he writes. “If one carries consecrated
meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold [of that garment then] touches
bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered, ‘no’ (2:12).” We 21st century American
Christians take communion. If you were
to ask me, the professional religionist of this church, after a communion
service, ‘Is everyone who ate today’s communion bread now sinless,’ I would
answer, ‘no.’ I believe the bread shows
that we are forgiven. Jesus has taken on
himself the death sin brings. But, after
we walk away from the Lord’s Supper, we
make mistakes again. We have been
forgiven. We have not achieved holiness.
Touching something holy doesn’t make us holy.
Holiness is not contagious. Sin is.
Next, in verse 13 Haggai asks, “’If one who is unclean by
contact with a dead body touches [you], do [you] become unclean?’ The priests
answered, ‘Yes.’” So, while holiness
does not rub off, impurity does. Paul
makes this point in his first letter to the Corinthian church. Quoting a Greek proverb, he writes, “Bad
company ruins good morals” (15:33). Who
we hang out with, what we watch, and the websites we visit and games play
affect how we think and how we see the world.
Sin draws us in, so that
we forget to consider the Lord as we live in the places of everyday life. 20th century theologian James
McClendon defined sin as refusal to walk the way of Jesus, ruptures in the
community (which is a rejection of God’s rule), and reversion to a life apart
from God.[i] We refuse God’s way, reject God’s rule and relegate
God to limited spaces. God lives in the church
building and we visit him on Sundays.
Maybe, God is awake and active when our family prays before a meal, or
while we are on a mission trip, or volunteering for a ministry. The rest of the time, God is quiet, sitting
off to the side and ignored. We would say,
O yes, Jesus is Lord. However, we’ve
caught the contagion: sin! So, Jesus is a quiet Lord who doesn’t have authority
in our day-to-day lives. Grace and
righteousness are condescendingly patted on the head and set on the shelf. Other values rule.
If we can’t catch
holiness, and defilement rubs off on us like wet mud clinging to our shoes,
what is do be done? How do we wash off
the profane and clothe ourselves with Christ’s gospel?
In verses 16-17, Haggai,
as he did in chapter 1, points out the farming failures the people struggled
with prior to working on the temple. And
in verses 18-19, Haggai notes how much better they fared once they laid the
foundation for that temple. What thread
ties it together? God’s involvement; “I
struck … the products of your toil with blight” says the Lord, when the temple was
a pile of rubble. And after the people
obeyed the prophet and began the work?
Haggai issued God’s promise.
“From this day on I will bless you.”
Holiness cannot be caught,
except when issued by God. Impurities,
defilement, sin, deviations cannot be washed off, except when the one doing the
washing is God. The divine call in
Haggai is an act of God’s grace. God
invites the people once again to be His people.
They did not accomplish this, but working hard in response to His grace,
they did rebuild the temple and re-establish the worshiping community. They received God’s blessing. They lived as
God’s active partners with God as the initiator. When God initiates the relationship and we
respond obediently, God makes us holy.
Church, we cannot stop the
pandemic. We can live responsibly, limit
our indoor gatherings, socially distance, and wash our hands. We can pray.
We must do all these things.
Church, we are powerless
to root sin out of the world; moreover, we will catch the corrosive effects of
life lived apart from God. We will feel God’s
absence, when under the influence of people who have refused God’s way,
rejected God’s rule, and reverted to a life apart from God. The godless life defiles us. But then we remember that the God who
promised to be present in Haggai has come to us in the flesh in Jesus.
He modeled the perfect
human life, loving selflessly, teaching God’s wisdom, fulfilling God’s law, and
doling out grace. In his death he
defeated sin, and in his resurrection, he overcame death. He calls us to himself and fills us with the
Holy Spirit. He makes us right. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:30, “Christ
Jesus became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption.”
We don’t catch holiness, we receive it. We turn to Jesus, he removes all that dirties
and ruins us, and gives us sparkling, heavenly robes. He is righteous and covers us with his
righteousness so that we may exist with one another in relationships of love
and peace.
In recent days, a lot of
talk about hope has been tied to a new president and to the arrival of
vaccines. We hear people pinning their
hopes to these things. We know the only
real hope for the world is Jesus, the holy, eternal one who makes us new. His holiness covers us. He gives us life and
we live in Him.
AMEN
[i]
McClendon, J. (1994), Systematic Theology: Vol. 2: Doctrine, Abingdon
Press (Nashville), p.130-135.
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