Praising God Together in Hope

Have you ever tried to build something amazing with Legos only to have someone accidentally step on it? Crunch it. All your hard work, all those hours of building turned into a pile of pieces on the floor. Oh no. It feels pretty discouraging, doesn't it? You might even feel like just leaving the mess there and walking away. Well, that's exactly how the people of God felt after 70 years away from Jerusalem. For 70 years they'd been living in Babylon in exile, basically in prison. They were locked up and they weren't allowed to go home. And finally they were allowed to go back to Jerusalem. And they had been dreaming about this the whole time. And the old people had been telling the young people, and the people born in Babylon that were Israelites were, they had the stories in their mind about the Golden Temple, the beautiful city, and the big strong walls. But when they finally arrived, it was not like their dream. It was a nightmare. Jerusalem looked like a giant junkyard. The city walls were knocked down. The gates were charred black by fire. And the temple, the most beautiful building ever made, was just a massive pile of gray broken stones. There were weeds growing between the rocks, and there were no songs. There was only silence and dust. The people stood there looking at the mess. I bet the kids looked at their parents and said, "Is this it? Is this what you've been telling me about, this, the place with the stories?" They felt small. They felt tired. And they felt like hope was buried under a million tons of rubble. Now when you have a mess that big, you can't fix it all in one day. You have to decide where to start. The leaders of the people, men like Ezra and Zerubbabel, they knew that they couldn't build the whole city yet. But they could build one thing. They decided to build a place to say thank you to God. So they built an altar right in the middle of the mess. They didn't wait for the city to be perfect. They didn't wait for the rubble to be cleared. They worshiped right where they were. The Bible tells us that everyone helped. The priests, the families, the grandparents, the kids. They rolled up their sleeves and they got dust on their— in their hair and dirt under their fingernails And they were together in hope as they built that altar. Hope that one day Jerusalem would be a city to be proud of again. Imagine them passing stones down a long line. Pass, catch, set. Pass, catch, set. Building that altar. They weren't just moving rocks. They were moving their hearts back towards God. They built that altar, and even though the rest of the city was still broken, they started to worship. They realized that you don't need a perfect building to worship the God of hope. After they built the altar, they started on the foundation of the temple. They laid the first big cornerstones, and when the work was done, they decided, we've gotta party, we've gotta have a celebration, the cornerstones are set. And so the priests put on special robes, The musicians brought their trumpets and their cymbals and brrr brrr brrr went the trumpets and crash crash crash went the cymbals. And then the most incredible sound in the Bible happened. It was a strange sound. It was a mixed up sort of sound. The young people, the kids and the teenagers, were looking with the new foundation. And they were so excited. They were cheering and whistling and shouting at the top of their lungs, "God is good! His love endures forever!" But at the same time, the older people, the grandmas and grandpas who remembered the old Temple and what it looked like before it was destroyed, they were not cheering. They were crying. They were weeping so loudly because they remembered how much had been lost. They were sad for what used to be. Imagine the sound. On one side you have people shouting for joy and on the other side you have people crying with loud broken sobs. The Bible says that the noise was so loud and so together that you couldn't tell the difference between the shouting and the crying. It was just one giant massive sound that echoed off the mountains and could be heard from miles. Away. That's what together in hope is really like. Sometimes hope is loud and it's happy and it's a cheer because something new is starting. And sometimes hope is a quiet tear because we remember something we lost. But when we bring our cheers and our tears together, God makes a sound that the whole world can hear. The neighbors around Jerusalem heard that noise and they knew The people of God are back and they are not giving up. As we finish our time here at Big Camp this year, look around the stage. Look at your new friends. Look out there. Look at your parents. They've made new friends too and reacquainted with old ones. We aren't here because everything in the world is perfect. We're here because we know that there's rubble in our lives sometimes and sometimes things are broken and sad, but We don't have to stand in the rubble alone. We stand together. We pick up stones together. We build our lives on Jesus together. So whether you're shouting because you're happy or whether you're a bit quiet because things are hard, remember this: you are part of the rubble shout. Your voice matters. Our great God hears you, hears us. And loves us, because God is always with us. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for the amazing stories in the Bible and how it's not just all shiny happy moments, but there's the doom and gloom that reflect our lives sometimes. So we can see ourselves in the journey of your people, and we can see how you respond to people on the ebbs and flows of the journey of life. We thank you for loving us when we're up, and loving us when we're down and reaching out towards us so that anytime we turn towards you, there's a hand ready to pick us up. Help us to rejoice when we're sad, to rejoice when we're sorrowful, tend to rejoice when we're joyful because we know that you are always with us. In your name, amen.