"Therefore, son of man, pack your belongings for exile and in the daytime, as they watch, set out and go from where you are to another place. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious people. – Ezekiel 12:3

Today's Scripture Reading (May 7, 2020): Ezekiel 12

I think that my favorite meme that has emerged over the COVID-19 pandemic is a simple equivalence equation. The meme argues that saying because we have slowed the spread of the virus, we can now end our isolation and our practice of social distancing, is like arguing that the parachute has slowed my rate of descent, so I can now throw it away, while my body is continuing its journey toward the earth. I have never participated in sky diving; I am not all that comfortable with heights. But I think I would still be hugging my parachute for a few moments after my body was once again solidly perched on terra firma.

But it is amazing how people react to anything new. Some can embrace change and enjoy encountering new challenges. These people quickly adapt to whatever the situation might be in the external environment and find their way through the changing circumstances. Others react slowly, and often have their focus on what used to be and put all their energy into finding a path back to that former reality.

Ezekiel is instructed to speak directly to this latter group. It is critical to remind ourselves that Ezekiel is not in Jerusalem when he receives this vision from God. He has been removed from Jerusalem and is already living in exile in Babylon. God sends him this curious message to pack for exile, and to play out in front of the people this drama about the impending exile, to people who are already in exile with Ezekiel. I can imagine the confused looks that Ezekiel received as he daily acted out this divine drama. I can imagine people trying to figure out if maybe Ezekiel had had some sort of the psychological break, questioning whether the current situation had just become too much for the prophet to handle.

But there was a message behind the prophet's actions. Some who had been taken into exile strongly believed that within a matter of weeks, or maybe a few months, God was going to return them home. They had refused to settle in the new land. They told stories of the day, which they believed was coming soon when God would appear and take his people home to Jerusalem and the cities and towns of Judea.

Ezekiel's drama was intended to carry a different meaning. Not only were the people currently living in exile in Babylon not going home any time soon, but the expulsion from Jerusalem and Judea was not yet finished. Another wave of exiles would soon be making their way to Babylon. And Ezekiel hoped that, when this new wave of prisoners arrived, those currently living in Babylon would be able to help the new exiles adjust to their new lives in an unknown land.

The exiles would return home, but not for a generation. Most of the people, who watched Ezekiel's daily drama of getting up every morning and packing for exile, would die in Babylon. The hope was now on their children and grandchildren because it was the next generation that God would return home.   

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 13

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my son Craig. I am proud of you!

The LORD said to me, "Son of man, these are the men who are plotting evil and giving wicked advice in this city. – Ezekiel 11:2

Today's Scripture Reading (May 6, 2020): Ezekiel 11

Recently, a meme went through Facebook that declared that Facebook had banned the Lord's Prayer on its social media site. The meme then directed people to post the Lord's prayer on their Facebook pages, proving that Christians are not willing to give in to the whims of the social media giant. Of course, the easiest way to place the Lord's Prayer on your Facebook page was to share the meme. In reality, Facebook has never issued any such directive but, as with so many other things that we are asked to share, our gullibility made someone a lot of money. And, because we trusted, we became part of the lie.

Ernest Hemmingway said that "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." Unfortunately, it is also a very expensive way. If we decide to trust someone, and then we find out that they are not trustworthy, the result is a costly bill that we are going to have to pay. When we post other people's lies on social media, people learn that we cannot be trusted. I just shared what I saw is not an adequate defense. We became the untrustworthy avenue for the lies to travel down. (You know all those, I am so ugly that no one will share my picture memes? Every single one of them represents a lie that someone is trying to lure you into so that they can make money. The best thing to do is to follow the drug use rule; just say no!) One of the only questions that really matters in life is, "Can I trust you?"

Trust is not about perfect performance or not making mistakes. We all make mistakes. We all have made decisions that afterward we wish we could take back. The central element of trust is that the person has the aim to make the best decision possible in the middle of a specific set of circumstances. I can trust you if I know that you want the best for me. If you don't, then I need to guard my every response so that my actions benefit me and those who have placed their trust in me

It is an argument that surfaces in every political campaign. In the last provincial (state) election cycle, it was trust that divided my vote. The reality was that the political party I agreed with the most in principle, I felt had violated my ability to trust with their actions. The candidate that I trusted the most came from a party that I thought had wrong policies, especially when it came to economics. The result was a tug of war inside of me. Eventually, I threw my full support behind the politician that had earned my trust, even though I felt that his party was headed in the wrong direction. Was it the right decision? I don't know. But at the time it was the only one that I felt I could make.

God points out to Ezekiel a group of men standing at the gates of the Temple, and standing among them were two of the leaders of the city. And the message that God gives to Ezekiel is one based on trust. God tells Ezekiel that these men are giving wicked advice to the people of the city, and they definitely can't be trusted. We don't know what the advice might have been, but it seems likely that they were taking a message to the people that argued that God would never let Jerusalem fall. And God needed Ezekiel to bring the truth to anyone who would listen. This time the city was in trouble. Jerusalem had not fallen in the past, but this time it would fall. It was a trustworthy message delivered by someone that the people could trust, because he was in contact with his God.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 12

The LORD said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the wheels beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And as I watched, he went in. – Ezekiel 10:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 5, 2020): Ezekiel 10

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah presents a captivating image for those who remember the story. We may argue about the cause of the tragedy, which I believe seems to be a lack of hospitality and not sexual sin according to the text, but what we can usually agree on is the end of the story. Due to the grievous sins of the cities of the plain, the cities, and all who were found living within them, were destroyed. And the means of the destruction was hellfire falling from heaven. Scholars have argued for centuries over the origin of the fire. Was it a supernatural phenomenon, or is it possible that the fire had a more natural source? One theory maintains that the five cities of the plain, which likely existed on the south end of the Dead Sea, were destroyed when an earthquake struck the area, causing the Dead Sea to spew out balls of burning tar. The result would have had a devastating effect on the cities as these balls of burning tar smashed into the buildings, breaking them down, and then adding fire to the carnage by burning what remained. There would have been little chance for escape, and it would have felt like God himself had taken up an attack on the city and was reigning down fire from heaven.

While the theory makes sense, the problem with it is that we have no contemporary reports of a major earthquake that occurred in the area during the days of Abraham. So, the concept remains a maybe, and not something that we can confirm with any degree of confidence. It is just a story about what might have happened to the cities at the south end of the Dead Sea.

We have a better level of confidence about the destruction described within the vision that Ezekiel relates to his audience. Like Sodom and the cities of the plain, God seems to be saying that he is going to destroy Jerusalem by raining down fire on the city. Ezekiel can hear the command coming from the throne of God and issued to the man clothed in linen; go and fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim, and then scatter the coals among the buildings of the city. It is clear that God intends to rain down fire on the city, just as he poured down fire onto the cities of the plains during the days of Abraham.

Unlike Sodom, there is no doubt about the origin of the fire that was going to rain down on Jerusalem. We may not know if there was an earthquake that caused hot tar to explode out of the Dead Sea, destroying the cities of the plain, but we do know that it would be the Babylonians who would destroy the city and burn everything that existed in Jerusalem

And there is also little doubt that as Ezekiel watches this scene played out in front of him, he understands that Jerusalem would be dealt with and would meet that same end as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. Even if the Babylonian threw the fire at the city, it was clear that it was God who had lit the match.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 11

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my daughter, Alyssa. Dad is proud of you!

And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. They came in and stood beside the bronze altar. – Ezekiel 9:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 4, 2020): Ezekiel 9

I love to act. I find it refreshing to try and get inside a character, one that is maybe not like me and try to make that character mine. I have played several roles from a Restaurant owner to a bad Santa Clause, and from John the Baptist to Scrooge. None of them are me, but, for a time, I get to lay aside my voice and my reactions and put on theirs.

But plays also have a purpose beyond just entertaining us. Playwrights have always told our stories, but they usually also want to tell us something about us, something that we might be missing in our lives. They desire to encourage action that goes beyond the characters of the play and settles into the person that we see in the mirror. These authors want us to understand the characters they have lovingly placed within their story, but also want us to see how we are similar to the characters that they have created. So “Romeo and Juliet” is not just about two young star-crossed lovers. The play carries within its narrative a serious message about the dangers we play with when we are unwilling to settle our differences and end our feuds. The story that William Shakespeare tells is one that is much needed in our day of political division. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is not just a story about a greedy man who meets with four ghosts in the dead of night, but reminds us of the importance of generosity. It relates a story to us that encourages us to understand that even our simple daily acts can carry long-lasting consequences. If we watch the play and miss the moral, then we devalue the efforts of the playwright or author who wrote the story intended for us.

So, God puts on a play for Ezekiel. In the opening scene of this divine tale, six men walk into the city from the Upper Gate. The gate was also known as the Upper Benjamin Gate or the New Gate. The gate was built by King Jotham during his reign almost a century and a half earlier, and it stood on the north end of Jerusalem. Each of the men Ezekiel sees is armed with a battle-ax, and they make their way straight toward Temple. There, they come and stand beside the bronze altar, the place where the sacrifices of the people were burned, standing just in front of the Temple Proper in the Inner or Upper Court.

It is only Ezekiel who sees this play being acted out in front of him, but there is no doubt that these men came to cause damage to the Temple, and possibly even to the whole city. And with them was a man with a writing kit, ready to write down everything that was going to take place. Ezekiel regards all of the men as angels and is attentive to everything that was about to take place.

Is God going to send his angels to destroy the Temple and the city? No, it is a divine play, but one with a deeper meaning. God wants Ezekiel to understand that what comes next is going to happen with his permission. The Babylonians were going to approach the city, following the fertile crescent, from the north. And there at Jerusalem, they would destroy what the inhabitants of the land had built. When the Assyrians came from the north and laid siege to the city, Isaiah told King Hezekiah that God would stand with him and that the Assyrians would not succeed in what they were they were planning to do. God gives no such assurance to Ezekiel, or to King Zedekiah. This time the city would fall. It is a message that causes Ezekiel to grieve over what might have been if the people had only listened to their God.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 10

I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. – Ezekiel 8:2

Today's Scripture Reading (May 3, 2020): Ezekiel 8

What does God look like? And what does it actually mean when God says, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness" (Genesis 1:26)? And while we are at it, what gender is God? Maybe these questions sound stupid to you, but I am guessing that even though the questions might sound silly, they sound dumb for very different reasons. I have had some great conversations with Christians who believe that God looks mostly like us. He has two arms and two legs, and when the Psalmist writes, "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands" (Psalm 102:25) it means precisely that. God used his very human-like hands to create everything. One friend reimagines the Genesis 2 account that describes God molding Adam out of dust and, in his mind, he can see that process of shaping by the literal hands of God, and then he can see God thumping Adam's chest with his human-like hands, to get the heart beating for the first time. It is a great image, but it might be more poetic than a literal description of what happened.

Concerning gender, when I was a teen working in a service station, I had a boss who attended the local United Church. One Monday, as I showed up for my shift, my boss was in a foul mood. I tried to avoid him for a while, but finally, I asked him what was wrong. He looked at me and declared that the pastor in church the previous day had prayed to "Father, Mother God." He was upset. After all, at least in his mind, God is Father and male, not Mother and female. The male gender identity of God was essential to his image of God. I have also met people who believe the opposite, that God is essentially Mother and female and not Father and male because the essential act of creation and the nurturing of this planet is more in line with a mother than a father.

I disagree with all of the above. God is other. I don't think it is easy for our finite minds to understand the dimensions and attributes of our infinite God. And so, when the Bible talks about Adam and Eve being created in God's image, it is not speaking of our physical bodies. Our physical body is finite, and God is not. And so, God makes an effort to reach beyond that finiteness. It is also clear that men and women are created in his, or more appropriately, and in keeping with Genesis 1:26, 'their,' image. Again, going back to the Genesis 1 narrative, the Bible declares that "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). The 'male and female' are an essential part of the passage. So maybe the question of gender is also not as set as we sometimes believe.

Is it important? Probably not. I believe that we are created in the image of God, but that has more to do with our spirit and our need for community (after all, God exists in 'essential community' as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) than it connects with our physical attributes.

But this other God does occasionally take a form that we can understand. The meaning of the incarnation is that God stepped out of heaven and became like us. He took on our image so that he could walk among us.

And there are other instances of God coming down in a form that we can understand. And one of them is here in Ezekiel. It is important to note that Ezekiel is not sure what he is looking at in his vision. The translators of the NIV have given us a little context when it says that "I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man," but the word man or 'adam' is not actually in the original text. A more literal translation of the text might be, "I looked and saw something that appeared to be fire. And from the (waist, hips, loins, middle part of the apparition) down there was fire, and from the (waist, hips, loins, middle part of the apparition) up it was like glowing metal. Whatever Ezekiel saw, it was maybe maybe like a man, Ezekiel does not seem to be sure on that point, but it was definitely not a man. It was other. God was reaching down into Ezekiel's finite universe with an image that, while it was a little familiar, it was still extraordinary and something that Ezekiel found challenging to quantify. He saw something which he knew was God. And while he struggled to understand the image, he described it as best he could so that we could struggle with it as well.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 9

Personal Note: Today is my Grandmother's birthday. She is an extraordinary lady who turns 105 on this day.

"Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to the land of Israel: "'The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land!" – Ezekiel 7:2

Today's Scripture Reading (May 2, 2020): Ezekiel 7

Life is filled with endings. Luckily it is also filled with beginnings. Both become important as we move through this journey. Yet, we also know the reality; that everything in this world will one day meet its final end.  We are finite, as is everything that we can hold and possess. Everything is subject to decay, and everything eventually breaks down and must be discarded. Things that stand the test of time are often relative, and very seldom are they physical.

Ezekiel seems to make a transition here. The prophet is living in exile in Babylon. He has been speaking of his home in Judah and their current situation with Babylonians. Jerusalem still stands, although the prophet recognizes that the future of the city is bleak, and it is now coming to an end. Both The city and the Temple will fall in the coming days. There is no longer any doubt in the prophet's mind about any of this. Jerusalem's end, along with the nation, is near.

But it seems like the prophet lifts up his eyes and begins to see and hear something entirely different as the prophet proclaims, "The end! The end has come" he speaks words that have an eschatological (relating to death, judgment and the final destiny of humankind) meaning. It is not just the death of Jerusalem that he sees; it is the death of everything. And he follows up his declaration of the end with more words that have an extended meaning. Transliterated from the Hebrew, the words are 'arbah kanaph' erets, which we have translated here as "the four corners of the land!" But Ezekiel is not the first one to use the phrase. Isaiah used it in his Messianic prophecy that includes the words "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse" (Isaiah 11:1). Later in the same prophecy, he says this:

He will raise a banner for the nations
    and gather the exiles of Israel;
 will assemble the scattered people of Judah
    from the four quarters of the earth (Isaiah 11:12).

The phrase "the four quarters of the earth" is the identical one that Ezekiel uses and is translated as the "the four corners of the land."

It seems possible that Ezekiel is not just talking about the end of Jerusalem and Temple, but the end of everything, including the Babylonians. When it comes to the power of God, it is not just the Jews that had to be careful, but it was every nation on the planet that would bow before the power of God. God had accomplished something in Judah using the Babylonians as his tools. But Ezekiel wants his hearers to know that even the Babylonians are not exempt from the wrath of God. The end would come for them too, and for every other nation, even those standing at the extremes or the corners or quarters of the world. With a prophetic vision, Ezekiel moves to the end of everything and declares that even there, God is on the throne. And all we can do is bow before his power.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 8

And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah—wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the LORD.'" – Ezekiel 6:14

Today's Scripture Reading (May 1, 2020): Ezekiel 6

Riblah is a city that leaped out of Judah's collective nightmare. The town, located in central Syria, was north of the traditional lands of the nations of Israel and Judah. When Josiah, the good King of Judah, rode out to meet Necho II of Egypt, he was routed by the Egyptian King and died trying to impede the Egyptian's move through his territorial land. After the battle, it was to Riblah that Necho went to set up camp, before he continued his campaign against the Babylonians. Three months after Josiah's defeat, Necho removed Josiah's son, Jehoahaz, from Judah's throne, and the former King of the Jews was imprisoned in Riblah before he was taken to Egypt to live out the rest of his days.

And in Ezekiel's near future, Riblah was going to regain its role in the national nightmare. It would be at Riblah that the Babylonians would make their camp so that they could launch an attack and siege against Jerusalem in 587 or 586 B.C.E. And it would be at Riblah that the last King of Judah, Zedekiah, would be taken following his defeat and parade through Judah at the hands of the Babylonians. It would be at Riblah that Zedekiah's officials would be executed. And at Riblah, the sons of Zedekiah would be killed in front of their father, and then Zedekiah would be blinded so that the death of his sons would be the last thing that he would see. And then Zedekiah would be removed to live out the rest of his life in exile in Babylon. The image, formed in the psyche of the nation, was that Riblah was a place where the enemies of Israel planned for the desecration of a country.

Ezekiel writes that the land in Israel, from the desert in the south to Diblah, likely in the north. The problem is that we really have no idea where Diblah might be. In the context of Ezekiel's prophecy, a town in the north of Israel makes sense, meaning that Ezekiel is asserting that all of Israel would be left in desolation. And this is precisely what happened at the time of the final exile of people into Babylon. In 596 B.C.E., a third wave of exiles were taken from the land of Judah. With the exodus of Israelites that were left in Judah, but who had decided to leave the beleaguered nation for what they believed to be safety in Egypt, there were not enough people left in Canaan to care for the land. What was left was laid to waste, inhabited only by animals until small groups of migrants began to move back into the vacated territory.

A few of the extant copies of Ezekiel suggest that Diblah should be written as Riblah and that maybe Diblah is a mistake or a copyist error. But the reality is that we don't know, and so Diblah remains the name we read in most of our Bibles.

But a case can be made for Riblah in this passage. First, it was in the north, so the phrase "from the desert (south of Judah) to Riblah (north of Israel)" makes geographical sense, encompassing all of Israel and Judah. But maybe even more importantly, Riblah was a place of past trouble and desolation. It was the place from which the defeat of Israel arose, both in the days of Necho II of Egypt and in the current time of trial at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 7