Thought, work, and feeling.
We have in this passage—
I. A TRUE THOUGHT (Ezra 3:8). "Now in the second year of their coming," etc. We can easily imagine any orator among the company of the returned Jews making out a strong case for leaving the building of the temple till better days should dawn. The sufficiency of the altar already reared for the practical purposes of devotion; the readiness of God to accept any offering that came from the heart, however mean the outward circumstances might be; the insecurity of their present state; their incompetence to build a temple which would compare with that of Solomon; the imperative necessity that existed to spend all their strength in consolidating their new-gained liberty; the wisdom of waiting till they could do something worthy of the God they worshipped, etc.—all this might have been made plausible enough, perhaps was so made. But if so, it was overruled by the true thought that to the God who had redeemed them from bondage, and given back to them their old liberties and their beloved land, they owed the very best they could offer, and that at the earliest moment. The first-fruits, they had long learnt, belonged to him who gave them everything. It was meet and fitting that as soon as ever they were established in their own old land they should build to him, the Source of all their blessings, the best house they could rear. This was a true thought of theirs, and should find a home in our minds now. Not anything that will do, but the very best that can possibly be done, for God. We should not be content that "the ark of the covenant of the Lord should remain under curtains" while we dwell in a "house of cedars" (1 Chronicles 17:1). Whatever, in the affairs of his kingdom, is improvable should be improved. The slain lamb is to be "without blemish." The building should be without disproportion; the singing without discord; the service without mistakes. Let worthiness, excellency, beauty, grace be offered to him who has given us not only the necessary and indispensable, but the exquisite, the delightful, the glorious. Let nothing detain us from the immediate service of Christ.
II. SYSTEMATIC WORK (Ezra 3:8, Ezra 3:9). They set about accomplishing their design with great carefulness and method. They committed it to the Levites, who were most interested and best instructed—to those of them who were of a suitable age (Ezra 3:8); they sent to Tyre and Sidon and to Lebanon for the best workmen and the best materials that could be had for money (Ezra 3:7); while, for love, the high priest and the priests overlooked and directed the work, and saw that all was according to the book of the law of the Lord. The work was quickly begun, but it was not hurriedly and slovenly dispatched. Each part was wrought by those who were specially adapted for it. No amount of zeal in the cause of God will make up for lack of intelligence and adaptation. We must build up the spiritual house of the Lord—the Church of Christ—not only inspired by consecration of spirit, but guided by a wise and intelligent adoption of the best means and appliances. Generous impulses must be sustained by sound methods, or the cause we have at heart will suffer, and instead of joy and exultation will come sorrow and shame.
III. MINGLED FEELING (Ezra 3:10-13). No more touching and pathetic picture can be found even in the Bible itself—that book of tenderest pathos and truest poetry—than the scene recorded in the closing verses of this chapter. The Jews, pure in heart and godly in spirit, have ever been capable of the most profound emotion. Here was an occasion to call forth the fullest joy and at the same time the tenderest grief. Once more, on the ruins of the ancient sanctuary, the new temple was about to rise. It was the hour from which a new era in their nation's history should date. It was an act from which the devotion of a reverent people for many a long century should spring. Patriotism and piety lent their strong and hallowed influences to ennoble and consecrate the scene. Feeling touched its deepest and rose to its highest note. And when the aged fathers, the ancient men, remembering the perished glories of the temple .on which the eyes of their youth once rested with such pride and joy, wept as they looked on its ruins; and when their tears and lamentations mingled with the shouts of gladness, resounding far and wide, that came from all the younger men, who rejoiced with great joy at the sound of the sacred songs celebrating the goodness and mercy of Jehovah, there was such a scene as can never have been forgotten by any of that goodly throng while life and memory remained. Thus hand in hand go joy and sorrow, inseparable companions, along the path of life. Thus do they stand together round the same altar, under the same roof. Thus do they mingle their smiles and tears at the same hour and scene. "Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn," says the aged grandmother in one of our poems; and in another we read most truly that
"There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy."
"We thank thee more that all our joy is touched with pain," sighs another tender spirit. That which forms so constantly recurring a strain in our poetry must be, and m, a prevalent and abiding feature of our life. Ill is it for those who have no other portion than the pleasures of the present, no other heritage than the satisfactions of earth and time. Well is it for those who thankfully accept earthly joy and the shaded brightness of the present time as flowers that spring at the touch of God's finger along the path of duty and devotion, intended to help us onward in that goodly way, speaking to us of the fuller blessedness which the future holds in its folded hand for them that are faithful unto death.—C.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD