Daily Lesson for October 23, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezra chapter 3 verses 10 through 13:

10 And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. 11 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord,
“For he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”
And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

When after 70 years of exile, the Israelites returned to their homeland and began to rebuild the Temple.  As they laid the foundation, shouts of joy and weeping could be heard.

For the aged, who had endured the dark midnight of exile and could remember all that was lost, I am sure the moment was bittersweet.  There was the sadness of all that had been lost and the gladness of what was to be regained. The past was past now; they well knew. If Israel had any plans for hope or a future it had to be built on the new foundation.

Earlier this summer I visited Coventry Cathedral, an Anglican Church destroyed by Nazi aerial bombing during the Blitz in November 1941 and rebuilt over the course of the next two decades.  As a memorial to the tragedy of war and the loss of civilian lives, large portions of the ruined medieval cathedral walls were left standing.  At some point following the bombing, a sign was hung on one of the ruined walls which bespoke of the day of rebuilding:

"THE LATTER GLORY OF THIS HOUSE SHALL BE GREATER THAN THE FORMER SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS AND IN THE PLACE WILL I GIVE PEACE."

The latter glory of that place -- with its modern architecture and brilliant use of light -- is indeed greater than the former.  Yet, I am sure that for those who endured the blitz and remembered the cathedral as it was and the people as they were, there must have been something of a lament for the former glory even as the latter was coming into being.

And this is life, whether at the dedication of a new church, or a move to a new house, or the birth of a new child: there is joy and hope at all that there is to now be; and there is also sadness and grief at the loss of all that was. To deny the pain of the loss of the former glory is to undermine then sacred potential of the latter.

"There is a time for everything," Ecclesiastes says, "a time to be born and a time to die . . . A time to mourn and a time to dance."

And then there is the time for both.