Anything built with human hands can fall to ruins. The Eaton and Palisades fires drove this lesson home to us in 2025. But for millennia, our scriptures have proclaimed this bitter truth as well. The books of Second Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Jeremiah all recount the time in 587/586 BCE that Babylon besieged Judah’s capital in Jerusalem, and razed Solomon’s Temple to the ground. How do you rebuild what was destroyed, knowing such a calamitous outcome may await you again?
It is a question that presses not simply on those of us looking to rebuild houses in the wake of the January fires. It relates to any effort to rebuild things of value. Churches, communities, nations, families, businesses, cities, and movements – all of these are forged in the crucible of hard work and persistent human striving. And all can collapse in a matter of years, months, or moments. When they do, where do we find the strength to put hammer to nail again?
In the book of Ezra, we are given a compelling answer: faith. But it is not a faith in the indomitability of the human will. Nor is it a faith in the resilience of the human spirit. It is not even faith that things will somehow, someway get better. It is a faith in God’s indomitable love and faithfulness. It’s a dogged belief that God accompanies and cares for us in seasons of destruction – and of rebuilding. Ezra makes this point time and again: that it was only by God’s initiative and gracious support that a task as immense as rebuilding the Jerusalem temple could come to fruition.
Even when that second temple was razed to the ground in 70 CE, God’s faithfulness endured. In the New Testament, we read of God providing the cornerstone for a new temple in Jesus Christ. And by faith in him, believers are made living stones who form a temple together, and whose foundation is the very savior who gave his life for us. In the book of Acts, we read of God’s renewing, regenerative Holy Spirit unleashed on the earth at Pentecost. And that Spirit has been determined ever since to bring new life to the world – even in the wake of destruction and death. The things we build may rise and fall. But God’s love and gracious work go on.
And so, as a church, we rebuild in faith. There are things we find too precious and vital not to rebuild – churches, communities, nations, families, businesses, cities, and movements. And each year, in the wake of transition and change, we pick up the hammer again. We recommit to service in stewardship campaigns, offering our time, and treasure to forge new relationships and ministries in 2026. We repaint and refurbish our campus. We reach out to neighbors in Habitat for Humanity building days, Casa orphanage visits, and work on behalf of the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. We seek the ongoing renewal of our worship life by the Holy Spirit’s leading. And we take up that task anew of proclaiming God’s love made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Each year is a time of rebuilding – not just 2025. Each year is a chance to lean on the presence and promises of God, and rebuild in faith.
With gratitude to God for the grace of Christ and the gift of one another in the journey,
Pastor Matt