10 “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. Jeremiah 29:10
1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: Ezra 1:1
12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. Haggai 1:12
Companions,
We all know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men (they gang aft agley) but when the LORD makes plans and covenants they are promises we can count on to be fulfilled. The biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah are like a progress report of God’s covenant with Israel during a time and with people we as York Rite Masons are familiar with. It was important to record the linage of the Royal descendants of David and the Priestly descendants of Aaron that at the completion of the new Temple the lawful rituals of the temple could continue and the Royal line of the Messiah be chronicled. All those genealogies in the Bible are not there just to fill in space. We know the plans of our Sovereign God will be carried out but we also know that He gives people the privilege of carrying out his work. As the M. I. Grand Master asks in his Theme Letter; “Are we not the Royal and Select?” Our duty as Guardians of Sacred Treasures should remind us of our connection with all those who throughout millennia have kept the Word of God, and the laws therein contained protected, intact and available.
O Sovereign God, in you do we put our trust. We thank you for bringing us into your fold, for keeping us in your protecting care and for the privilege of living in service to you. Amen.
Jack A. Holloway
I. Associate Grand Chaplain