Have you ever gone back to visit your childhood home or neighborhood? It can be a melancholy experience. I, among others, report that things can seem smaller, and much different than you remember them. And there are things that have actually changed from what they were.
When the people of God returned to Jerusalem after their time of exile in Babylon, some had a similar experience when they tried to rebuild the temple there. For those who had “been there before,” it wasn’t the same as they remembered, which made them sad:
And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. —Ezra 3:11-13
This Scripture comes to mind because we are collectively going through something similar as we “return to life” after our COVID exile. Some things are still the way they used to be, but many things are not, and they never will be. So we mourn those things that are not the same. And that is natural and normal. Over time, though, a new joy takes over, a joy that remembers the past but keeps focus on the promise of the future. For instance, when the new temple in Jerusalem was completed, the Bible tells us, “The people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy” (Ezra 6:16). Their joy was full, and ours can be too, as we rejoice in the God who gets us through to the other side to live a new life with him.
