“Take courage…says the Lord, and work!” In Haggai’s time, there were those who didn’t want to rebuild the Temple and go back to “the old ways.” People like Ezra and Haggai tried to rebuild the Temple and the community (rebuilding the community was the harder one). Haggai was trying to give the people courage that they could rebuild. Today, we need courage, too, to address the cultural assaults to our faith tradition. We need to heed the words of Haggai that God is with us. We need to replace our fears with trust in the Lord.