“This House is Magnificent”

Pentecost 13 – August 29th and 30th, 2009

Haggai 2:6-9

Have you ever driven by a house that was so magnificent, you just had to slow down and gawk at it?
Growing up in Saginaw, we lived one block away from a house that used to go all out at Christmas time. Every
year, they would cover their whole house and yard with lights, life-size manger scenes, spotlights, those little candle
lights in the windows and one humungous star that glowed from atop one of the evergreens in the backyard. It was
quite the sight! Every Christmas season, cars would make the turn onto our street, slow down and just gawk at the
Christmas house. As I got older, I found out something very disturbing. The man who decorated his house like
that every year used to lure children to the house during the winter season so that he could molest them. I wonder
if the house would have looked so magnificent to onlookers if they knew what was going on inside!? I would bet if
people did know, no matter what the outside looked like, it would be a sickening sight!
On the other hand, have you ever driven by a house and thought to yourself, “What a dump”? One block
over from the Christmas house was this little shack looking place that was gray and somewhat dilapidated, the grass
was never cut, it never looked like anybody was there. We used to drive by that place and mumble to ourselves,
“Look at that eyesore! I wish they would just bulldoze that place...” That was before we found out that it was a
safe-house for beaten and battered women and children! It didn’t look so ugly to us then, when we found out its
purpose in rescuing women and children from abusive homes.
Appearances can be deceiving. In other words, “There’s more than meets the eye!” Nowhere is that more
true than with Jesus Christ, and the church that proclaims his salvation – where humility and magnificence intersect
and in fact are joined in a perfect union. To the world, the church and its Christ look very unimpressive, very
humble, very insignificant. As Christians, we have a much different perspective. In today’s Old Testament gospel
gem from the prophet Haggai, we’ll learn just how magnificent “this house” really is – “this house” referring to the
Savior Jesus, the “desired of all nations,” but also referring to the church that proclaims Jesus as Savior. Both have a
very humble appearance, yet both are truly magnificent and glorious in service to mankind.
The post-exilic Israelites knew the definition of humility very well. Just as a bit of background for you, in
586 B.C., after years and years of prophets warning the people of Judah to throw away their worthless idols and to
return to the worship of the One True God, God finally handed over the obstinate people of Israel to the
Babylonians, who ransacked the holy city of Jerusalem, burn its edifices, destroyed the glorious temple of Solomon,
put many leading officials to death, and led the remainder away to Babylon as slaves and exiles. Nearly 50 years
later, when some of the exiles started to return to Jerusalem, there was literally nothing to return to. Their homes
had been destroyed, and most importantly the place of worship, the temple, where God had promised he would
meet his people to offer their forgiveness and grace, that was gone too.
The post-exilic Israelites knew was humility was because they lived it! They were living in a constant state of
humiliation. The temple of Solomon, at one time, was a source of pride for the people. It was magnificent. It was
glorious, truly a sight to behold. You and I can’t even imagine the amount of valuable resources that were poured
into its construction. The value of the gold alone would have been astronomical. But as the people began to build a
new temple to replace the glorious Solomonic temple, one thing was apparent – it didn’t have the same level of
splendor. It wasn’t nearly as magnificent as the old temple. Venerable men who had lived long enough to have seen
the 1st temple actually cried real tears when they saw the new temple being constructed, because they knew it would
never, ever be the same. Its outward glory would never equal that of Solomon’s.
But the Lord had a message for them: “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it
look to you now? Does it look like nothing?...Work, for I am with you. My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear...In a
little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the
desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord Almighty.
In other words, did the outward appearance of the new temple matter that much? Answer, no, because what
made that house of God glorious was God’s presence, no matter what the outside looked like. And where God’s
presence is, there is also his promises of grace and forgiveness, the proclamation of salvation through the Messiah, a
promise that God would bring to fulfillment some 500 years after the completion of the second temple. When
God, through the mouth of Haggai spoke those words, “And the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this
house with glory,” he was referencing the advent of the Christ-child in Bethlehem, which would be magnificent and
glorious not only for the children of Israel, but indeed the whole world.
What’s interesting, though, is that this “desired of all nations,” just like the 2nd temple that foreshadowed
him, this “highly esteemed one” would also not be all that impressive to look at, would not be very glorious or
magnificent in appearance. In fact, Jesus’ outward appearance was quite lowly and meek. Instead of being born a
child of privilege, in a huge palace with several attendants and all the resources in the world, Jesus came into the
world in a stable, and was laid in a feeding trough, surrounded not by attendants, but by sheep and other
domesticated stable animals. Jesus, the “desired of all nations” would not be highly regarded by the world’s greatest
leaders, or honored by the world’s greatest personalities, or esteemed by the world’s greatest minds. He would
instead be “Stricken, smitten, and afflicted by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, like one from whom
men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not! His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man
and his form beyond human likeness...He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we
should desire him.”
How does Jesus appear to the world, to the untrained and unbelieving eye? In his state of humility, and
especially in his greatest humiliation on the cross, he looked like nothing. On the outside he, Jesus, to whom the
shadows of the Old Testament temple pointed, he was an eye-sore – not very impressive at all. Yet how magnificent
that temple, Jesus was! On the inside he was pristine! He was perfect, without any spot, without any speck of sin,
without any kind of blemish! Even as death’s shadow came over him, he remained unblemished before the Father’s
law, so that he would be accepted as the guilt offering for the sins of the whole world, so that his sacrifice would be
the atonement that would be accepted by the Father as payment for your sins and mine – and there, my dear
friends, is where humility and magnificence intersect, as the humble, lowly, unimpressive guilt offering, Jesus, in his
greatest act of mercy gained forgiveness and redemption for all mankind! He may be gruesome to look at on the
outside, but this house, this temple, this Desired of all nations is magnificent. And we get a glimpse of his
magnificence on Easter morning when he gloriously rose from the dead.
Looks can be deceiving! It was certainly true with Jesus, and it continues to be true with the church that
proclaims his name for the salvation of souls. Do you think that we look all that impressive to the outside world?
In the relative scheme of things, we are a very small group of Christians. Our congregation in its rich history has
never had on its records more than about 250 souls, and our worship attendance pales in comparison to many other
religious groups, Christian or otherwise. Our synod is one of the smaller Christian denominations in America, and
looks rather insignificant compared even to other Lutheran synods. And on a much broader scale, it appears that
the number of people who chase after falsehood far outweighs the number of those who cling to the truth of
salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. To the world, our congregation, our synod, and the Christian
church as a whole appear like nothing! But is there more than meets the eye? Listen to Haggai 2:9: “The glory of this
present house will be greater than the glory of the former house...and in this place I will grant peace,” declares the Lord
Almighty.”
On the outside, the second temple didn’t even come close to matching the glorious edifice that was
Solomon’s temple. But on the inside it was magnificent, because there, God’s people gathered around the symbols
and the rituals which pointed ahead to the coming of the Messiah and his work of redeeming the world from sin
through his perfect sacrifice. When people would gather at the 2nd temple, they had an opportunity to grow in faith
and to receive the peace of mind and conscience, knowing that all of their sins would be taken away by the Lamb of
God, the coming Messiah, and that through faith in him, they would receive forgiveness and everlasting life. How
magnificent!
The Christian church, and congregations like ours might look like nothing. But how glorious this house is,
because in this house of God, where precious souls gather around Word and Sacrament, true and lasting peace is
offered! When you come through these doors each and every week, you come, just as I do, heavy laden with sin,
guilt and shame, burdened by the troubles of our lives, weighed down by the pressures of jobs and family, beaten up
time and again by the world, and exhausted by the many assaults that our souls endure throughout the week. And
here, we come into this magnificent house, which looks so puny and insignificant on the outside, and we have the
privilege of laying all our sins on the guilt offering, Jesus, laying all of our troubles and problems before him, and by
Word and Sacrament receive his peace...the true peace of full and free forgiveness, and the peace of conscience and
heart that believes and recognizes that in all things, in every situation, the God of all grace who saved us by his blood
will rescue us unto eternity by delivering us from evil into the glory of heaven, a foretaste of which we receive every
single time we gather for worship! What a magnificent, glorious house! Amen.