Not by Might

In the middle of the night, an angel shakes a man awake. Not to give him a message in words, but to show him something: a lamp made of gold, burning brightly, and two olive trees standing beside it.

It is around five hundred and twenty years before Jesus is born. Some of the Jewish exiles have come home from Babylon to Jerusalem. The city is half ruined. Years earlier they had laid the foundation of a new temple. But opponents caused trouble, money ran short, and the work stopped. Weeds grew over the stones. Now two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, are urging the people to start again. Their leader is Zerubbabel, the governor, a descendant of King David. And the task looks impossible. A small, poor community. A great empire watching. And a heap of rubble where Solomon's temple once stood.

Zechariah has been seeing visions. This time the angel who talks with him wakes him, like someone waking from sleep, and asks, “What do you see?” Zechariah describes it. “I have seen, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it, with pipes to each of the lamps. And two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other on the left.” The lamps burn without anyone filling them. The olive trees feed the oil straight in. Zechariah is puzzled. “What are these, my lord?” And the angel says, “Don't you know what these are?” “No, my lord.”

Then the angel explains with a message for Zerubbabel. “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” Not by an army. Not by wealth or strength. By God's Spirit, like oil that never runs out. Then the angel speaks to the obstacle itself. “Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are to become a plain.” The mountain of difficulties in front of him will be flattened. And Zerubbabel will bring out the final capstone of the temple, while the people shout, “Grace, grace to it!”

Then another word comes to Zechariah. “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it.” And then a question for anyone tempted to sneer at how small the work looks. “For who has despised the day of small things?” People will rejoice when they see the plumb line, the builder's measuring weight, in Zerubbabel's hand. The seven lamps, the angel says, are the eyes of the Lord, which run back and forth through the whole earth. God sees everything. He has not forgotten this little building site.

Zechariah's own book tells us when this was: the second year of King Darius of Persia, about five hundred and twenty years before Christ. And the book of Ezra records how it ended. The temple was finished in the sixth year of Darius, around five hundred and fifteen BC. Zerubbabel's hands really did finish it, about four or five years after Zechariah saw the lampstand.

Not by might. You can read it in Zechariah chapter four, verses one to ten. God's work is not done by force or by money but by his Spirit. And the temple those weary builders finished, small as it seemed, was the temple where, five centuries later, an old man named Simeon would hold the baby Jesus in his arms. So here is a question to carry with you. God told Zerubbabel not to despise the day of small things. What small beginning in your life could God be using?