How is the situation with these people, working on the temple, with every work of their hands and what they offer? It is a shock to find, in Haggai 2:14, that it is unclean in God’s sight. And that brings us up short: What does it take to be friends with God? This passage, it seems to me, gives the most difficult, the most unpalatable answer in the book of Haggai. Difficult partly because it is a tricky passage to understand, but difficult mainly because it is uncomfortable. And when we do understand it, we rebel against it. I have been struggling with this passage this week, and the more I think that I have grasped its meaning, the more I have rebelled against it. My family and I were overtaken recently by a very smart car. A very smart car. I think it was some sort of a Porsche, but I did not see it for long enough to be sure. It looked as if it had an engine at both ends. It was a most impressive vehicle, and as it disappeared in a cloud of dust into the distance one of my younger children piped up,
Christopher AshWhy don’t we buy one of those, Dad?Do you remember those golden days when the word omnipotent seemed to attach itself to your parents? I am afraid that a little lecture on the economic realities of life followed. Understanding reality is a mark of growing up. And it is a part of growing up as a human being to understand and face up to spiritual reality. Many people live in a spiritual cloud-cuckoo-land with no grasp of spiritual realities.1
14 Alors Aggée, reprenant la parole, dit:Tel est ce peuple, telle est cette nation devant moi, dit l'Eternel, Telles sont toutes les œuvres de leurs mains: Ce qu'ils m'offrent là est souillé.