All Saints Sunday: Treasure of the Broken Land

Haggai was a prophet tasked with rebuilding the temple after the Babylonian Exile.  What does God's word in Haggai have to say about loss and grief and hope?  Why do we even celebrate the saints who have gone ahead of us? What's it going to be like when God shakes the nations, anyway?

Haggai 1:15b-2:9

In the second year of King Darius,

on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them,   ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?  But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the LORD. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the LORD Almighty.   ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’
 

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.   I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.   ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty.   ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”