… and I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me. – Ezekiel 11:25

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 4, 2014): Ezekiel 11

During May 1931, Adolf Hitler found himself in a bit of an unusual situation – and definitely a very uncomfortable one. Hitler was on trial and the person responsible for the trial was German lawyer named Hans Litten. The actual trial was over the death of two workers at the hands of four “Sturmabteilung” officers. The “Sturmabteilung” (SA) were the early members of the Nazi special forces until they were eventually replaced by the “Schutzstaffel” – the dreaded Nazi SS.

Litten’s examination of Hitler lasted for three hours. The three hours that Hitler spent on the stand in 1931 were so traumatic that Hitler would not let Litten’s name be spoken in his presence for the rest of his life. And during the three hours on the stand, Litten made some important discoveries. First, Hitler was contradicting himself, indicating that the Nazi leader was not being totally honest with the German people. He also discovered that Hitler was involved in using violence against those who dared to oppose the Nazi party. It was a crucial discovery because it called into question Hitler’s claim that the Nazi’s were a strictly legal middle class party. The judge finally intervened freeing Hitler from eventual conviction, but Litten hoped that the trial had exposed Hitler enough – that enough information about the Nazi Party had been revealed to the German people - to cause permanent damage. In fact, newspapers in Germany covered the trial in detail and Hitler was investigated for perjury the following summer. Unfortunately, he survived the investigation – but the experience rattled him and for the rest of his reign Hitler maintained an iron hand on the amount and type of information that the public would be allowed to know.

Knowledge is power. Often it seems that what is evil survives by limiting what people know. But Ezekiel realized that – and so he told the exiles everything that God had shown him. Nothing was to be concealed, everything needed to be revealed. Ezekiel knew the exiles needed to know that, even though their situation was not what they wanted, that God was still in control and on the move – and that there was still hope. Don Rickles says that he talks to God, but whenever he calls, God is out of town. And while it must have seemed that way for the exiles, the truth was that God was still answering; still leading his prophets even in a strange land. And this was a message the Ezekiel had to make sure that the exiles knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. This was knowledge that could not be hidden. They had to know – everything.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 12