But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.
Ezra 3:12 NIVUK
Those of us with a somewhat sunnier disposition might find these verses a little hard to comprehend. "You've just returned from exile." they might say. "The foundations of a new temple have been laid. The first act of worship in Jerusalem for seventy years has taken place. Lighten up! Turn that frown upside down! How can you be so ungrateful for what God has done here?"
If we think that way, then we really are missing some important contextual details.
The act of worship was taking place on only the foundations of the temple. It was as much a demolition site as it was a construction site. All around the temple was rubble, overgrown having lain on the ground for seventy years. The city walls were destroyed (Nehemiah 2:11-17). Its gates had been burned with fire (Nehemiah 1:3). It is hard to come to any other conclusion than to say that Jerusalem was a seventy year old disaster zone.
And the Bible is crystal, and painfully, clear on the cause of this horrific disaster:
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the Lord . He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him take an oath in God’s name. He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the Lord , the God of Israel. Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord , which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. The Lord , the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling-place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.
2 Chronicles 36:11-16 NIVUK
As they worshipped, not in a stunning temple that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but on the foundations of a new, smaller, less grandiose temple on a demolition site, we can come to a clear conclusion:
These people had every right to mourn. There was no doubt at all that it was a fitting thing to do. Many of us would do precisely the same. That simple act of worship would have been like a sharp thorn in their eye, painfully reminding them of their failure as the people of God.
And there is a time to mourn (Ecclesiastes 3:4). There is a time when it is absolutely the right and proper thing to do. And we, as the Body of Christ, have a duty to mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15). Our job is not to tell them to cheer up or be happy or smile. It is not to 'fix' the situation. It is definitely not to accuse them of being less of a believer than us because they are sad and we are happy. Absolutely not! We are to mourn with them.
But there is also a time not to mourn. There is a time when we need to set mourning aside and rebuild our lives, however difficult and painful that may be. It's not up to other people to determine when that is or should be. We should move at our own pace that feels right for us. However, there has to be a point when mourning no longer cripples us and we start to move on.
It's interesting that a different approach was used several years later, when Ezra read the Law to the people and they began to weep (Nehemiah 8:9-12). They were likely under conviction of sin again as Ezra described the reasons behind all the horrors that had taken place against them. On this occasion, Nehemiah and the Levites encouraged them not to mourn because "the joy of the Lord is your strength".
And that's just it: grieving and weeping weaken us. They reduce our strength. They reduce our resiliency. They even reduce the effectiveness of our immune system and make us more susceptible to illness. It's why yes, there is a place for grief and sadness, and yes, on many occasions it is absolutely the right way to react, but no, it cannot be forever.
Another example is found in the death of Moses. There is little doubt that Moses is one of the world's most respected religious figures - by three great world religions. His loss would have been enormous. No wonder the Israelites mourned him for thirty days (Deuteronomy 34:8). But we read these rather direct words in the next book, the book of Joshua:
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord , the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant: ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the River Jordan into the land I am about to give to them – to the Israelites.
Joshua 1:1-2 NIVUK
Imagine these words! They seem so callous! And yet they are a simple statement of fact. Moses was dead. There was no getting away from it. You would have had to have lived under a rock with noise canceling headphones on not to have noticed a million people mourning the death of their leader for thirty days. But what God is saying here is that Moses is dead. He is gone. The Israelites have mourned him for thirty days. It was time to move forward and take the land the Lord had promised them. It was time to move on.
In 2001 I came home from Romania to watch my father die of cancer. Four years earlier, while I had also been in Romania, my grandmother had died. My father had watched how his family had reacted to his mother's passing. He saw how relative after relative - and mostly his father - heading up to that gravestone and talking to his mother as if she was still alive. Some might find it strangely comforting. My dad didn't. He found it horribly morbid. He felt that his family were not moving on because they spent so much time in the graveyard.
And so he made a decision. He wanted to be cremated. He knew he would have no use for his body anymore. He knew everything that was truly 'him' would no longer be there. He didn't want his family to be crippled with grief. He wanted them to move on and live their lives. We respected his wishes when he went to be with his Lord.
Many of us have lost so much as a result of Covid-19. Careers, jobs, salary, many have lost people too: friends, neighbours and family members. Grief is absolutely normal in this situation. Sadness is normal. Mourning is normal. It hurts to say goodbye. It really does.
However, if our loved ones really loved us, the last thing they would want for us is to spend the rest of our lives destroyed by grief and sadness. There is a time to mourn. But there is also a time to be happy. Just as grief is normal, in the same way it is not at all wrong to find something that lifts your spirits and enables you to keep going.
And as Nehemiah describes, that something can be the Lord: who He is, what He has done, what He can do, what He will do.
If we feel like we can live for nothing else in this season of sadness, then let's live for Him and let Him give us joy, even in the midst of deep loss.
Having looked at the people who react with anger and sadness to change, we'll now look at THE HAPPY PEOPLE.
Recovering from grief can and is hard. True the Word says there is a time to mourn, recovering and moving on after the death of a love one is hard and painful. It takes resilience to be determined to move forward.