After God’s people returned from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, Ezra 3:8-13 tells of the day that the people got to work and laid the foundations of the second temple. The work was hard and involved many who contributed their skills, and the end result was that the people achieved what they had set out to do. A stranger to Jerusalem that day might have been surprised by the very loud sounds of joy and crying coming from the Temple site. Joy, because progress had been made and the Temple work had begun. Crying, because those who knew the glory of the first Temple could only remember ‘what once was’. There is always a danger that God’s people look back with longing to the past, but God is at work today and calls us to be ‘His living stones’ of a different kind of temple, made up of all who believe in Jesus.

When the people of Judah returned fron Babylon to Jerusalem, there must have been a whole host of matters to attend to after a 70 year absence. But the text of Ezra 3:1-7, tells us that once the seventh month of the year came, the month in which Jews observe many of the Old Testament feasts, what gained top priority in their lives was the re-introduction of the worship of God. They did this through reconstructing the altar that had been torn down and offering the required sacrifices and feasts as outlined in the Law of Moses, remembering the past and how God saved them and looking forward to the future when all nations would come to Jerusalem to worship God. Today God still desires His people to worship Him and the be those through whom the message of His grace will reach the whole world.

After the first chapter of Ezra set the scene for the return of God’s people to Jerusalem from Babylon through the decree of the Persian king Cyrus, Ezra 2:1-70 fills in the names of the 42,000 who made the journey and came back from exile. While some may think that not much can be learned from a whole chapter of names, the very record of these names is significant in itself. These people who returned from exile were heads and members of families and will forever be rememberd for being the ‘ones that returned’. Their intention in going back was to worship God and proclaim Him to the surrounding nations. God’s people today have a similar aim. We are His missionary people, so that His name might be known all over the world.

The story of the book of Ezra concerns the return of God’s people to Jerusalem after their peirod of exile in Babylon. In Ezra 1:11, we find a very clear picture of the sovereign rule of God who brough King Cyrus of Persia to power and ‘stirred’ him to allow His people to return back to their home land. The chapter also reminds us that God did all this to fulfuill His promises made through the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah years before. God’s people are still on a journey home. The book of Revelation (ch. 18) tells of the fall of Babylon and then the emergence of the new Jersualem (ch. 21), where God’s people will be with Him and enjoy Him forever.