Zerubbabel

By Guest Writer

Tending my garden is simultaneously one of my favorite and least favorite activities. I love the idea of gardening: of hours spent in the warm sun, hands in the dirt, digging up and delivering fresh, beautiful blooms to a vase on my kitchen table.

In reality, the work of gardening is work—hard work. It’s never simply warm when my garden needs tending because I live in the south and it is almost always scorching hot. It’s sweaty labor, on sore knees and with callused fingers, pulling up the same weeds week after week. I love it for what it produces; I usually dread the work to get there.

The people of Judah—the southern kingdom—had been exiled by the Babylonians. Their temple and city of Jerusalem were destroyed, their lives in ruin. After they returned to their city, the good work of rebuilding began.

But then it got hard. While they envisioned the glorious return of God’s presence to his holy temple, the reality of building felt daunting. Then their neighbors from Samaria started attacking them, making the job really, really hard. So they stopped. For years.

The prophet Haggai served an important role as God’s messenger by encouraging the people to return to the work of rebuilding the temple. And Haggai prophesied directly to Zerubbabel, who was the governor of Judah, saying “‘Go up into the hills, bring down lumber, and build the house; and I will be pleased with it and be glorified,’ says the LORD” (Haggai 1:8).

Zerubbabel responded instantly. Verse 12 says, “Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and the entire remnant of the people obeyed the LORD their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him.” The Lord later honored Zerubbabel’s response and hard work, saying “‘I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant’—this is the LORD’s declaration—’and make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you’”  (Haggai 2:23). The signet ring marked the authority given by God to rule his people; as Zerubbabel was part of King David’s family, this symbolized the continuation of God’s covenant with David—that someone from his house would rule God’s people forever.

Working for the Lord can often feel slow, tedious, or like we’re under attack constantly. The fruit is not ours (it is the Holy Spirit’s alone) but we are empty vessels in the Lord’s hand. We are more like the Judeans than Zerubbabel—slow to listen or to do the hard things required to tend to our spiritual well-being. But as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Written by Melanie Rainer