Today's Scripture Reading (April 30, 2020): Ezekiel 5
Some years ago,
an older woman came up to me at a worship service and declared that she
believed it was a sin for a Pastor to color his hair. And then, as abruptly as
she started the conversation, she ended it, walking away before I could
respond. All I could assume was that she believed that I was coloring my hair,
and she was calling me out for my sin. It was a humorous moment, but one that I
had to quickly put into my rear-view mirror because the worship service was
about to begin.
That was years
ago. Today, I am going grey. That is not really a surprise, it happens to most
of us, and often at an age a lot younger than I am. My beard is mostly white,
as are my sideburns. If you look closely, you can see a little grey in
sprinkled throughout the rest of my head. But I have resisted coloring my hair.
My solution is to shave off my beard and the offending sideburns. And to keep
my hair a little shorter, or maybe a lot shorter, than I did in the days of my
youth. I am not sure if the woman who confronted me at the front of the church all
those years in the past would still be disappointed in me. After all, I am still
hiding my grey, just in a way that is different from what she imagined.
Ezekiel is told
to remove all of the hair on his head. Two things are essential to note here. The
first is simply that the act itself was a violation of Jewish law. Ezekiel was
a priest, born into a priestly family. And the law is clear. "Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies" (Leviticus
21:5). For Ezekiel to shave off all of the hair on his head was an incredible act,
and one that probably horrified the people around him. I wonder if there was a
little more discussion between God and Ezekiel over this event than he reveals
in his writings. Like, "God, are you sure you want me to do this?" Just
the act of shaving off the hair on his head would have grabbed the attention of
the prophet's audience.
But there is more. Not only was Ezekiel
instructed to shave the hair off his head, but he was also to complete the task
with a sword. So that you know, this is also unusual. Swords are not made for
shaving. The traditional way of shaving off the hair on the head or face was to
use a razor, just as that is the preferred method today. A sword was a clumsy
instrument to use for such a task as shaving. There was a better way.
But once again, God is trying to
illustrate a point. The time was coming when the people would be led out of
Jerusalem, defeated and in disgrace. To emphasize the element of disgrace, the soldiers
would remove the hair of the exiles. But they would not do so gently. It would
not be a barber, trained at the task of removing hair with his razor, that
would do the job. It would be soldiers, roughly separating the hair from their
captives with their swords. A coming reality that Ezekiel was now demonstrating
for the people already living out their lives in exile in Babylon.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 6
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