My Dear Shepherds,
Finally, God’s people started returning. Not as many as had left, but then again, those who came back had changed for the better and others came for the first time. They came because God moved their hearts. It is like that again.
According to Ezra 1, the seventy-year exile of God’s people in Babylon came to a miraculous end when “the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus the king” of Persia to urge Jews to return to Jerusalem “to build a temple [for] the Lord, the God of heaven.” In response to the king’s proclamation,
… the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. (1:5)
Last year our people were sent into a kind of exile. Not the same as Israel’s, I know, nor for the same reason but an exile all the same. We went weeks—months—without being together. We couldn’t even sing together on Easter! Now, gradually, slowly, our people have begun to return, and we earnestly hope that within a few months it will be safe for all our people to come back, to sing freely, to pray in close circles, to embrace as we meet, to be un-Zoomed.
Pastors fear that some Christians, untethered all these months, have disconnected from the most basic of all Christ’s commands, “Love one another.” What if they’ve come to think they can have church without other people? Shepherds have wondered if these sheep will ever return to the fold or if they’ll be content with solitary, susceptible wandering.
I take heart from the timeless hope embedded in this account in Ezra. Start with this: God intends his holy people to be together and he will surely take initiative to make it so. “The Lord moved the heart of Cyrus.” “Everyone whose heart God had moved.” Surely, God will move the hearts of his people now, all the more because they are the blood-bought saints and the beloved bride of Christ Jesus the Lord. After all, our congregation are God’s own sons and daughters.
Pastors, the congregation that gradually regathers around you will not be the same as they once were. Not as many perhaps, but not the same at heart either. The remnant of Jews who made the long journey back had been away for seventy years while their ravaged land rested and while their own hearts become humble and homesick. Many of them were born and raised as exiles, a people in waiting. When they gathered they sang, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. … If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.” Your people—many of them—are homesick too. They are homesick for life together around Jesus. They are more ready than they realize for God to do a new thing in them and among them. God has moved their hearts.
Your first order of business: gather them around Jesus, as Israel around their rebuilt altar. Having been separated from the body of Christ they’ve lost something of Jesus himself. So give them Jesus first. Before you reconstruct old ministries or cast new vision, give them Jesus.
Then, attend to rebuilding their love for one another, the way the Jews took to rebuilding God’s temple. Reinforce the joy of their reunion as the family of God. Make time to tell stories of God’s faithfulness over these months, sing and pray together, eat together, enjoy Communion together.
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed.
Be ye glad!
Pastor Lee
