They had started strong. When God called the Israelites, His chosen people, back to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile in Babylon, they were feverish about doing His work. His goodness and enduring love was their rally cry as they got to work rebuilding the temple that the Babylonians had destroyed. But, something happened as the temple started to take form. Some of the older generation who remembered the grandeur of Solomon’s temple wept as they looked upon the new structure and compared it to what used to be. They knew that as a remnant people with very little to offer, this new temple would not even come close to what they had had before. And, I wonder if they suspected that God’s blessing to them wouldn’t be matched as well.
The beautiful and fervent collaborative work of God’s people slowed down, eventually stopping entirely. For 16 years, in fact, God’s people went about their lives, building up their land and businesses again, likely walking by the temple construction site everyday that now looked like ruins. I wonder if they walked by that site and felt like they were looking at a mirror to their hearts, hearts that had been stirred by God but now were dormant and dusty towards Him. They must have turned their heads to look away as they walked by and were reminded.
But, God was after those dusty broken hearts still. He didn’t leave them alone in their seemingly hopeless mess. God spoke through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, calling His people who had returned to Jerusalem to now return to Him. God told them that He could make their mountain-sized obstacles like plains before them (Zechariah 4:7). He assured them that those who had led them as they started their building campaign would see it through to completion and that those who had felt that they were simply living in the day of small things (Zechariah 4:10a) would be changed as they saw the big things happening in front of them.
The advent season stirs us, and our strings of memories aren’t unlike the tangled strings of Christmas lights. As we try to make sense of the seemingly hopeless mess before us, we may feel like the Israelites did, like God is like the ghost of Christmas past and that whatever big things He used to do in us and for us are no more. But, God is never not working to draw us closer to Him. He never stops inviting us into His Kingdom work. We are never stuck in a day of small things because He’s always a God of big things. Today, this day, what may seem just like a normal day, today is the day of big things.