Ezra 3:11-13 (ESV Strong's)
And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord,
“For he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”
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.
Subject: Transition from Old to New
When you get older your memory fails you. At least your short term memory does. However, your long term memory haunts you. You can't remember the name of the person you just met, but you swear he looks likes you fifth grade teacher, whose name and face you remember vividly. When we are older we remember the old days. We don't recognize the new ones. In the above passage this is what is happening to the older generation who has returned to the land to rebuild the Temple. Whereas the younger generation rejoiced in the fact that the foundation was laid and saw a reason to rejoice, the older generation only had the haunting comparison of "what used to be." It is, in most cases, as curse. The older generation couldn't rejoice in the same manner as to what God was doing because their memories of the past still seized them. They lost a great opportunity to rejoice, praise and worship with focus on the "new" for God because they were stuck in their time-warp of the "old." God has called us to remember the past, but not to cling to the past. God wants us to learn from the past (1 Corinthians 10:11, but not be held by the past. When we are tempted to say, "This is not how it was!", we ought to instead rejoice and say, "This is how God now wants it!!"
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