Tears from Ezra: “It’s Just Not the Same”

I’ve been on a bit of soul-searching journey since relocating from Georgia to southern California over a year ago. Within that soul-searching journey resides countless sub-journeys, including a church-searching one.

I’ve not felt truly at home in a church since 1999. So it’s been a while. You would think after twelve years I’d just give up on this whole churchy pursuit; somehow God’s given me the strength to keep searching.

I’m currently in the midst of posting recaps of my YouthWorks summer, an eleven-week journey that brought me both purpose and community — two foundational rocks to this solid feeling of belonging. Since returning to life as usual in southern California, I’ve felt this unyielding weight that life will never be that great again; I could never rediscover that heightened level of purpose or such tight cords of community. How could anything possibly top or even equate this summer? My brain — my heart — declares such a thought impossible.

In my never-ending church-search, I wandered somewhere new this past Sunday morning, and as the sermon was preached I was overcome by that awesome incredible God-can-only-be-responsible sensation. What’s great is that this sermon was preached from all those dusty Old Testament prophets that we quickly shuffle over on our way to the glittery New Testament.

Jeremiah. Ezra. Haggai.

Hold on, don’t bounce yet. I promise I’m not about to talk about cubits or people begetting other people.

Having grown up in the church and multiple Christian schools, I sorta know my biblical history. I know about the Israelites’ exile in 586 BC at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. I know how to spell Nebuchadnezzar. And I know the Israelites eventually returned to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple.

But in between all the facts, I’ve missed all the raging emotions.

The Israelites defiled Solomon’s temple with all kinds of crud, assuming God would always protect His children from harm. And then harm came. And then their precious temple was destroyed.

Then, exile. Wandering.

Fifty long years later, a remnant of Israelites returned. And as the new generation cheered over rebuilding their temple’s foundation, Ezra 3:12 describes what the remaining members of that older generation were feeling:

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes.

They cried. Wept. Not out of joy, but sadness. Sadness that this second temple would be nothing like Solomon’s illustrious original.

How they must have longed for the past.

I feel exactly like that older generation right now. No matter what cool new foundations might start being laid in my life right now, I keep weeping over my life-infusing summer in Milwaukee.

It’s just not the same; I honestly can’t fathom any new “temples” in my life matching the glory days of old.

Still, this church service greatly encouraged me in a time of “church weariness.” Later that night I actually attended a second service at this church’s satellite campus. Little did I know the same exact passages from the morning would be referenced, but that an entirely new message would be crafted from this little book of Ezra.

You see, before the Israelites even started rebuilding their temple’s foundation, they took the timeout to build altars to their God who faithfully returned them home. And so I’ve wondered: have I been thankful to be home? Have I praised God for the summer or simply wept over it? Once again, Ezra hit me square between the eyes.

Ezra.

It’s heart-stirring: the power of two completely different messages from the same obscure book at different church services in the same day. I’m gonna keep attending this church, and I feel reasonably confident about this place actually, which is something I’ve not felt in a long time about church.

I’m not exactly sure what’s happening with my life these days. But I’m taking a timeout today while remembering the glory days, and while striving to embrace the new temples in my life. Somehow.