Greater Glory - An Advent and Christmas Journey with Haggai
During Advent this year, we will read the little book of Haggai. It is only two chapters, a mere thirty-eight verses long! It is set in 520 BCE, with the prophet's last words recorded in the ninth month of the Hebrew calendar, our November-December. Haggai is very much an Advent preacher.
This year's Advent series, titled "Greater Glory," is adapted from the journal Reformed Worship. Each Sunday we will pair a passage from Haggai with a reading from the Christmas story. Each Sunday we will receive a fresh promise from God: I am with you. I will grant peace. I will bless you. I have chosen you. I will fill this house with glory. These promises are just what tired and distracted people need.
Paneled houses and an unfinished house
Nearly two decades had passed since the first exiles came home from Babylon. They had been busy and they were tired and worn out. Yet Haggai asks them this question: "Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house [the temple] lies in ruins?" (1:4).
Then he invites them to examine their lives. You sow much and harvest little. You eat and are never full. You earn wages to put them in a bag with holes (1:6). We all know someone who has arrived in December with a full calendar and an empty spirit.
So the people began building the temple. But the new temple that rose from the rubble was so poor that those old enough to remember Solomon's temple wept at the sight of it (Ezra 3:12). Haggai says out loud what everyone is thinking: "Is it not in your sight as nothing?" (2:3), then he gives them God's promise: "Take courage… work, for I am with you… My spirit abides among you; do not fear" (2:4–5). The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former (2:9).
What kind of glory?
The people of Haggai's day pictured silver and gold. The promise was that the treasures of the nations would come flowing in to decorate the new temple, and the shalom of God that would fill "this place" meant at least that they would have enough to eat. But the temple that they were building, this second temple, did not outshine Solomon's until Herod rebuilt it five centuries later, and Herod's temple stood for less than a hundred years. "Not one stone will be left here upon another," Jesus said of it (Mark 13:2).
John Calvin, lecturing on Haggai in Geneva, understood that the promise was much larger than any building. Gather "the treasures of a thousand worlds" into one place, he said, and the glory will still be perishable. The house would only truly be glorified when God appeared in it in the person of his Son. An older translation of Haggai 2:7 reads, "the Desire of all nations shall come," and Charles Wesley turned that promise into one of our favorite Advent hymns: "dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart."
Jesus was carried as an infant into that same temple, and there an old man called him "a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel" (Luke 2:32). On the Sunday after Christmas that message comes to us full force from the Gospel of John: "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory" (John 1:14).
In Haggai, God promises "I am with you" before the people lay the first stone, and it is the Lord who stirs up the spirit of the people to do the work (1:13–14). The last word of the book is another promise, another gift: "I have chosen you" (2:23). God's promises and God's grace come first. ...then comes the fullness of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Week by Week
Nov 29 First Sunday of Advent (Hope)
I Am With You Haggai 1:1–15; Matthew 1:18–25
Dec 6 Second Sunday of Advent (Peace)
I Will Grant Peace Haggai 1:15b–2:9; Matthew 2:1–15
The Lord's Supper
Dec 13 Third Sunday of Advent (Joy)
I Will Bless You Haggai 2:10–19; Luke 1:67–79
Lessons and Carols; Christmas Pageant
Dec 20 Fourth Sunday of Advent (Love)
I Have Chosen You Haggai 2:20–23; Luke 1:26–38
Blue Christmas: Service of Healing and Wholeness
Dec 27 First Sunday after Christmas
We Have Seen His Glory John 1:1–14
Consider your ways
Haggai offers us good Advent advice: stop and consider. The Advent season invites us to find new beginnings where the night seems longest and darkest and the year is ending. That's where Haggai's people found themselves and it is where we find ourselves in 2026.
Three ways to participate
1) Read Haggai. It is a really short book! ...maybe ten minutes, max. Read it each week and pair your reading with stories of Christmas from the Gospels.
2) Come on Wednesday mornings. The adult Bible study looks ahead to each Sunday's passage.
3) Bring someone with you to church. Haggai spoke to a whole community, governor and priest and people together. The promise "I am with you" is for everyone.
First Presbyterian Church has been gathering for worship in Clarksville since 1822, and we know what it is like to worship in an old building with old bricks and stones. But as glorious as this sanctuary is, especially at Christmas, Haggai reminds us that "we aint seen nothin yet!" This is the place where we gather to meet the One whose glory no building can hold, and who has chosen, all the same, to dwell with us.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Greg
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