We're Back! A Sermon on Ezra 3:1-6

Two thousand, five hundred, fifty-six years ago. With a far-stretching caravan at his back and his older friend Jeshua at his side, Zerubbabel catches his first good look – his first good look in all his life – at the broken shards of the city of David. He'd been marching toward it since it first popped above the horizon, but now he could see the crumbled, overgrown fragments of houses great and small, mortal and divine. He'd only heard his royal grandfather's reminiscences of a glorious gleaming city. And now here it was, inglorious and sullied, the haunt of beasts and vines and peasants. Yet the tears it brought to Zerubbabel's eye were tears, not of lament, but of joy. For the sight of the remnants of shattered Jerusalem was the moment a lifetime of exile ended. And as he wept his tears of joy, only one thought could have filled his mind: “We're back! Thank God, we're back!”

Decades before that tear hit Zerubbabel's eye, his grandfather Jeconiah had been king of Judah, until he, enthroned at age 18 and ruling just three months, rebelled against his Babylonian overlord Nebuchadnezzar. But Nebuchadnezzar came, laid siege to the city, and made Jeconiah and his family surrender. And so Jeconiah was taken away to Babylon with several thousand of his people, and Jeconiah became a prisoner. (Beyond the Bible's report of it, we have Babylonian records of the prison rations he was given!) In the meantime, ten years after that, Nebuchadnezzar would demolish Jerusalem, burn God's temple to the ground, and take many more into the captivity of exile (2 Chronicles 36:9-19).

In the destruction of the land, tens of thousands were killed, twenty thousand were taken into exile, and only the impoverished country-dwellers were left behind. But this fulfilled the words of prophecy. For the LORD had said to Moses that the people of Israel were to observe sabbath years and jubilee years, rhythms of time to give peace and rest to the land itself: “Six years shall you sow your field and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD” (Leviticus 25:3-4). And this set the stage for all the laws of mercy and kindness and redemption (Leviticus 25:8-55). “You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary,” God urged them (Leviticus 26:2). For if they did, they'd be blessed with peace and health (Leviticus 26:3-13).

But God knew that they'd do evil in his sight, that they'd harden their hearts, that they'd pollute the temple and the land and scoff at his prophets “until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:16). And so, long in advance, the LORD had threatened to “devastate the land” and to “scatter you among the nations, and... unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall have rest, the rest that it didn't have on your sabbaths when you were dwelling in it” (Leviticus 26:32-35). And so the Babylonians had been allowed to capture Jeconiah and the people “until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years” (2 Chronicles 36:21).

But when the land had caught up on its sabbath rests, when the time decreed had been unwound, then the LORD took a pagan Persian king by the hand and gave Cyrus victory over Babylon, so as to reveal his own glory and set free his own people. Whereas Babylon's policy was to rip people from their homelands, Cyrus wanted each nationality in his empire to have a land of their own and a temple of their own, where they could pray to their respective gods for his well-being. And the true God stirred Cyrus' spirit to include the exiled Jews under the cover of that policy (Ezra 1:1). So after so many years of their scattering throughout Babylonia, Cyrus gave an order, giving permission and support to the exilic Jewish community that any who wished could return to their ancestral land of promise, which would now be the Persian province of Yehud (Ezra 1:2-4).

When the decree of this worldly ruler went out, giving permission for the scattered Jews to regather, not everyone was ready. One would have thought that Daniel, taken into Babylonian captivity years before even Jeconiah, would have gone. But he stayed in Babylon. So did the ancestors of Esther. So did a substantial number of Jews scattered throughout Babylonia. And even among those who would return to their homeland, they came in waves. Not all arrived at once. And that was okay.

The earliest wave was the one led by Zerubbabel, who would – due to his uncle Shenazzar's death – act on Persia's behalf as the governor of Yehud, and by his older friend Jeshua, whose father Jehozadak had been taken into exile and whose martyred grandfather Seraiah had been the last high priest to serve in Solomon's Temple. Behind Zerubbabel and Jeshua came over forty-two thousand other Jews with their hearts turned toward Jerusalem, “everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up” (Ezra 1:5). Coming up out of captivity, marching to the ancestral homeland many of them had never seen, “they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town,” the town where each of them, or their parents, or their grandparents, had lived before exile had snatched them away (Ezra 2:1).

What must that have felt like? For the oldest among them, they were returning somewhere not seen since they were teenagers. Only for elders were these places even memories. For the rest, they were just stories – names in lost tales. And yet it was the start of a new life, a life in a homeland, a life that God himself had stirred their hearts to want and to yearn for. It would be hard. It would be a challenge to take these ruins and turn them back into towns. There were threats around, and things seemed unfamiliar – even what they could partly match to a memory or a story.

For a few months, the returning Jews were separated. They found the least-ruined shelters they could, and they began to clean, and they began to live. But then the designated month was approaching. It was September of 537 BC. And, having resettled in their towns, they all left – over forty-two thousand of them – and converged on the ruins of Jerusalem. Zerubbabel and Jeshua, governor and priest, had called for them to come. And so when “the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem” (Ezra 3:1). Talk about a profound unity! When these thousands and thousands of Jewish returnees came to Jerusalem, it was as if there was just one person, the Body of Israel, standing amidst the old wreckage.

But what happened then? “Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brothers, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God” (Ezra 3:2). Now, picture this scene. The once-scattered people, long beaten down and cooped up in exile, have at last come home. They've converged in Jerusalem's wreckage on the first day of the seventh month, acting in unison as the Body of Israel. It was the Feast of Trumpets, and with trumpet blasts had Zerubbabel and Jeshua summoned the people to gather (cf. Numbers 29:1).

Now, all around them is rubble. The rubble of the palace where Zerubbabel's grandfather had once lived. The rubble of the temple where Jeshua's grandfather once ventured into the Holy of Holies before the Glory had departed (cf. Ezekiel 10). The chosen people's public liturgy of worship had always been carried out in the shelter of that temple, or the tabernacle before that. Ever since they left the shadow of Mount Sinai so many centuries before, their principal altar had always been positioned with reference to the Ark of the Covenant that had been the footstool of God's heavenly throne, the place of his presence on earth, our world's visible contact-point with heaven. And here they were, on the scraped slopes of Zion... and there was nothing. No tabernacle. No temple. No ark. No visible contact-point. Just desolation.

But amidst that desolation, their leaders built an altar. On the exact spot where the pieces of the old altar stood, they tore down what was left, and they built a brand-new one. And then, on that untempled hill, the altar of God stood again. And in the presence of the people, they lit the coals. Someone stepped forward, carrying a lamb born in Babylonia, a lamb they'd brought with them. And that someone handed that lamb into the arms of Gov. Zerubbabel. And Zerubbabel brought the lamb to Jeshua. And for the first time in decades, Jerusalem was the scene of a fiery offering to the LORD God Almighty, and the smoke of roast lamb ascended to heaven, entering the presence of the Most High on behalf of all Israel. They built and sacrificed in a state of fear and trembling, fear of the local residents who'd never been taken captive, those who'd be disturbed by what they'd done (Ezra 3:3). But the offerings continued – the bull, the ram, the other lambs, the goat (cf. Numbers 29:2-6). “And they offered burnt offerings on [the altar] to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening,” every day (Ezra 3:3). Without the temple, without the ark, with just an altar and an open sky, they sent up their fragrant smoke to heaven, worshipping God outdoors, even where God seemed visibly absent.

Nine days later, and the time for the Day of Atonement came – a day of gathering and fasting, repenting from their sin (Leviticus 23:27). Jeshua, as high priest, should have entered the Holy of Holies that day. But there was no Holy of Holies to enter. It was the day when God had promised to “appear in the cloud over the mercy seat” of the Ark of the Covenant (Leviticus 16:2). But there was no mercy seat. Jeshua's orders in the Law were to wear his high-priestly garments and to “make atonement for the holy sanctuary..., make atonement for the tent of meeting and the altar..., make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly” (Leviticus 16:32-33). There was no sanctuary. But surely Jeshua made the other offerings and did the other rituals, as best as he could. And at long last, after decades of waiting, all the sins of the people could be covered and blotted out. Forgiveness washed over Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the thousands of God's people set free.

Five days passed, and the Feast of Booths began, another festival of gathering and dozens more sacrifices (Leviticus 23:34; Numbers 29:12-16). It was a time to live in tents and huts – hardly a stretch for a people who were scarcely rebuilding their homes (Leviticus 23:42-43). It was a time to present the produce of their fields to the LORD (Leviticus 23:39). It was a time to wave their fruit and their palm branches in rejoicing in the LORD's presence (Leviticus 23:40). And so, however they could, “they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required” (Ezra 3:4). And so, even without a temple, even without the foundation yet for a temple, with nothing but an altar under the open sky, they resumed their rhythms of gathering to worship, as 'by-the-book' as possible in their circumstances. Israel was back!

And so are we – we're back, we're back! Thank God Almighty, we're back! And these stories of restoration give texture and shape to our own story. Like the people of ancient Judah, we were scattered – not by the armies of Babylon but by a disease outbreak that still stalks this land (67 new cases reported in our county yesterday). In restless patience have we waited, hoping that our land would reclaim some of the sabbaths of which we've deprived it. Whether it has or not, God will let us know. But when the time was right, God stirred the spirits of rulers to pave the way for our return here – here, to the place of our heritage; here, the scene of our worship. You sit here this morning as part of the first wave of returnees to the congregation. Other waves will come, when the time is right for them; but if you are here, you are like those who went with Zerubbabel and Jeshua, those who came to venture a new thing in a fresh way. Like the thousands who came to Jerusalem as one Body of Israel on the Feast of Trumpets that year long ago, you have responded to the summons – may you all be here, not as one Body of (the old) Israel, but as one Body of Christ!

Those who gathered with Zerubbabel and Jeshua had no tabernacle, no temple, no physical signs of the presence of God. Instead, they built a new altar under the open sky for their worship. We are not so deprived as they, but conditions necessitated that we, too, worship under the open sky, in the rubble of our prior customs and patterns. It feels strange. It seems unusual. The things we usually look towards aren't there. The implements we use – hymnals and Bibles, icons and stained glass, pulpit and pew – well, they haven't been rebuilt in our experience yet, any more than the foundation had been laid when Zerubbabel and Jeshua built that altar. For us, we must build our altar here without the customary accompaniments. We must build our altar of hearts and souls in this place, this place of our resumed gathering, our resumed fellowship, our resumed public liturgy of worship. And what rises to heaven now is not the fragrant smoke of bulls and lambs, but the fragrance of our unity and the sacrifice of our praise, being the firstfruit of our masked lips (Hebrews 13:15). Let the songs of God's glory and the shout of the gospel and the trumpet-blast of the kingdom ascend to the heavens this day – the church is back!

For we have been led here, not by great Zerubbabel, but by great Zerubbabel's greater Son – his descendant and heir, Jesus Christ. And our worship is directed, not by Jeshua the son of Jehozadak, but by the Son of God who shares the name of Jeshua/Jesus. For our Jesus was sacrificed as the Lamb at the cross, and he returned from the exile of death, and he entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with his own blood for an Eternal Day of Atonement. He is our Prophet and Priest and King! And the same Spirit who stirred the spirit of Cyrus and the spirit of the people and the spirits of Zerubbabel and Jeshua is the living Spirit whom the risen Jesus has poured out to stir our spirits here, as we faithfully sacrifice and patiently wait to rebuild our worship to its fullest glory! Hallelujah, we're back! Hallelujah, the Body of Christ is gathered! Hallelujah, the sacrifices of our unified praise rise!  Hallelujah, hallelujah, hosanna, amen!