The Sacred Noise of Rebuilding Text: Ezra 3:8-13
Introduction: The Ache of Memory
We live in a throwaway culture. Our age is pathologically obsessed with the new, the novel, the next big thing. We are encouraged to forget our history, to tear down monuments, to deconstruct our heritage, and to build some kind of glorious, undefined future on the rubble. This is the spirit of the age, and it is a spirit of rebellion. It is the spirit of Babel, which seeks to build a monument to man on a foundation of amnesia.
But the people of God are a people of memory. Our faith is not an abstract philosophy; it is rooted in historical acts of God. We are commanded to remember our creation, to remember the Exodus, to remember the covenant, and above all, to remember the death and resurrection of our Lord. To be a Christian is to have a long memory. And because we have a long memory, we understand that rebuilding is not the same as starting from scratch. Rebuilding requires us to look at the ruins, to see what was lost, and to feel the ache of that loss. It requires us to honor the foundations that were laid before us.
The book of Ezra is a story of rebuilding after catastrophic judgment. Israel had broken covenant, and God had sent them into the Babylonian exile, just as He had promised He would. The temple, the heart of their worship and national life, was a pile of scorched stones. The city was a ruin. But God, in His covenant faithfulness, His hesed, had also promised to bring them back. And now, a remnant has returned. They are a shadow of their former glory. They are surrounded by enemies. They are poor and weak. But they have the Word of God and the promise of God. And so, they begin to do the one thing necessary: they begin to rebuild the house of God. What we see in this passage is the glorious, messy, complicated, and noisy business of true reformation.
This is not just a lesson in post-exilic history. This is a paradigm for the church in every age. We are always rebuilding. We are always looking back to the apostolic foundation and seeking to restore the purity of worship according to the Word. And we will find, as they did, that this work is always accompanied by a sacred and confusing noise: the shouts of joy for a new beginning, mingled with the loud weeping of those who remember a greater glory that was lost.
The Text
Now in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak and the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites, and all who came from the captivity to Jerusalem, began the work and appointed the Levites from twenty years and older to direct the work of the house of Yahweh. Then Jeshua with his sons and brothers stood united with Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah and the sons of Henadad with their sons and brothers the Levites, to direct those who do the work in the house of God. So the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh. Then the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Yahweh according to the directions of King David of Israel. And they sang, praising and giving thanks to Yahweh, saying, "For He is good, for His lovingkindness endures forever upon Israel." And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised Yahweh because the foundation of the house of Yahweh was laid. Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first house of Yahweh, were weeping with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, while many in loud shouts with gladness were raising their voice, so that the people could not distinguish the voices of the shouting of gladness from the voices of the weeping of the people, for the people were shouting with a loud shout, and those voices were heard far away.
(Ezra 3:8-13 LSB)
Ordered Work, United Purpose (v. 8-9)
The work begins not with chaotic enthusiasm, but with deliberate order.
"Now in the second year of their coming... in the second month, Zerubbabel... and Jeshua... began the work and appointed the Levites from twenty years and older to direct the work of the house of Yahweh." (Ezra 3:8)
Notice the specificity. This is a dated event. History matters. God works in time and space. The leadership is clear: Zerubbabel, the civil governor from the line of David, and Jeshua, the high priest. Here we have the throne and the altar working in concert. This is a picture of a rightly ordered society, where the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities both understand their roles under God and work together for the restoration of true worship. This is not a merger of church and state, but a cooperation of two God-ordained governments.
The work itself is structured. The Levites, those set apart for the service of the sanctuary, are appointed to oversee the project. There is delegation, authority, and order. God is not the author of confusion. Reformation is not a disorganized free-for-all. It is the careful, disciplined work of restoring God's established patterns. They are not making it up as they go along. They are re-establishing a known order.
Verse 9 emphasizes the unity this order brings: "Then Jeshua with his sons and brothers stood united... to direct those who do the work." Unity is not found by erasing distinctions and roles, but by embracing them for a common, godly purpose. When everyone knows their job and does it faithfully, the result is a powerful unity. This is the kind of unity the Apostle Paul speaks of in the church, where different members with different gifts work together as one body.
Foundation, Worship, and Reformation (v. 10-11)
The physical work immediately gives way to its spiritual purpose.
"So the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh. Then the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise Yahweh according to the directions of King David of Israel." (Ezra 3:10)
The moment the foundation is laid, the work stops and the worship starts. This is essential. The goal of all our labor, all our building, all our cultural endeavors, is the praise of God. Work and worship are inextricably linked. We work so that we might worship, and our worship fuels our work. The foundation is not an end in itself; it is the necessary prerequisite for the worship of God to be re-established in the land.
And how do they worship? Do they conduct a survey to see what kind of music the younger generation prefers? Do they try to innovate with some new Babylonian liturgy? No. They praise Yahweh "according to the directions of King David of Israel." This is the heart of reformation. It is a return to the source, a recovery of scriptural worship. They understood that God is not to be worshiped in any way we see fit, but only in the way He has commanded. They dusted off the old Davidic hymnbook. This is a direct rebuke to the pragmatic, entertainment-driven, man-centered worship that is so common today. True worship is not novel; it is ancient. It is not innovative; it is obedient.
And what is the content of this ancient, obedient worship? "And they sang... 'For He is good, for His lovingkindness endures forever upon Israel.'" Their praise is theological. It is grounded in the character of God. His goodness, and His hesed, His covenant-keeping, steadfast love. After seventy years of exile, after seeing the temple destroyed because of their fathers' sins, they do not sing about their own worthiness or their great accomplishments. They sing about God's faithfulness. This is the gospel. Their return is not a testimony to their strength, but to His unbreakable promise. And the people's response is fitting: "all the people shouted with a great shout." This is robust, joyful, loud, corporate praise.
Sorrowful, Yet Always Rejoicing (v. 12-13)
But then, another sound is added to the chorus, a sound of weeping.
"Yet many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' households, the old men who had seen the first house of Yahweh, were weeping with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes..." (Ezra 3:12)
The old men weep. Why? Are they faithless? Are they complaining? Not at all. They are weeping because they remember. They saw Solomon's temple in all its glory. They remember the grandeur, the gold, the sheer weight of its magnificence. And now they see this foundation, and in comparison, it seems like nothing (Haggai 2:3). Their tears are not tears of ingratitude for the present, but tears of grief for the past. They are the tears of men who understand the catastrophic cost of sin. They know what was lost. A generation that has never known glory cannot properly grieve its absence.
This weeping is a holy and necessary thing. It is the grief that recognizes the ruin that sin brings. It is the opposite of the shallow optimism that pretends everything is fine. To reform the church, we must first see how far she has fallen. We must grieve the loss of our theological heritage, the loss of cultural influence, the loss of liturgical reverence. Without these tears, our joyful shouts are superficial.
And so we have this magnificent, holy cacophony.
"...so that the people could not distinguish the voices of the shouting of gladness from the voices of the weeping of the people, for the people were shouting with a loud shout, and those voices were heard far away." (Ezra 3:13)
Joy and sorrow, mingled together. Shouts and weeping, indistinguishable in one great sacred noise. This is the sound of the Christian life in a fallen world. This is the sound of the "already, but not yet." We shout with joy because the foundation has been laid. Christ is our foundation, and our salvation is secure. We are a new creation. But we weep with a loud voice because we see the glory of the Eden we lost, and we still wrestle with the ruins of sin in our own hearts and in the world around us. We are, as the apostle said, "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10).
This noise, this testimony of a people both grieving and rejoicing, was "heard far away." It was a witness to the surrounding nations. It declared that the God of Israel was alive, that He was faithful to His covenant, and that He was at work among His people, bringing life out of ruin.
Conclusion: Building on the True Foundation
This scene in Ezra is a portrait of our own lives and the life of the church. The true and final foundation has been laid once for all. That foundation is Jesus Christ Himself (1 Cor. 3:11). God, in His great mercy, has begun a new work in us, building us into a spiritual house, a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21-22).
And so we should shout with a great shout. We have been brought out of the exile of sin and death. God's hesed has been poured out upon us in Christ. Our praise should be loud, robust, and grounded in the goodness of God.
But we should also be those who know how to weep. We look at the church and see the ruins of compromise and worldliness. We look at our culture and see the rubble of what was once Christendom. We look in our own hearts and see the lingering effects of our own sin. And so we weep with the old men, grieving what has been lost and longing for the glory that is to come.
Let us embrace this holy tension. Let us be a people who know how to work and worship, how to shout and weep. Let us be faithful to lay the small stones of obedience on the great foundation of Christ, always reforming our lives and our worship "according to the directions of King David," that is, according to the unchanging Word of God. And may the sacred noise we make, the sound of our joy and our sorrow, be heard far away, as a testimony to our great and faithful God, who is building His house and will surely bring it to completion.