Today's Scripture Reading (July 8, 2020): Ezekiel 36
As a people, we suffer from a disease called "nostalgia." It is a disorder that makes everything that existed in the past seem better than it really was. We long for the "good old days." All over our cities, older adults sit down in their little groups, drinking their coffee and remembering the way things used to be, and in the process, changing the way that their histories really looked.
A few weeks ago, I sat lurking on a Facebook page dedicated to my old "Alma Mater" (I have a few, but in this case, it was "Canadian Nazarene College") and wondered if I should join with the troop of memories. Maybe it was at that moment that I realized that there was something wrong with me. I had no desire to rehash old memories. I am remarkably content with where I am, especially considering all the ways that I have failed during my lifetime. And the words of Jon Bon Jovi still make a lot of sense to me.
I like the bed I'm sleeping in
It's just
like me, it's broken in
It's not old
-- just older
Like a
favorite pair of torn blue jeans
This skin
I'm in it's alright with me
It's not
old -- just older (Just Older, Jon Bon Jovi).
As Ezekiel prophesies to the mountains of Israel, he refuses to focus on what is behind. The nation had failed. As a result of that failure, Ezekiel, and most of the best and the brightest of the country, were living out their lives in Babylon. There was an overwhelming desire of the people to go back to the way things once were, to experience life once again in Jerusalem. The people dreamed of yesterday and the Temple in the days before the Babylonians had come to town and had the building destroyed. The popular game in Babylon had become tainted with the disease of nostalgia as the people reimagined the wonderful ways that things used to be.
But Ezekiel shifts the focus. He calls on the mountains to "be fruitful and multiply," reminding the people of the command found both in the Creation Poem of Genesis 1 as well as in the recommissioning of the earth in the days of Noah (Genesis 9). His instructions to the people are not to return to a nostalgic longing for yesterday, but instead, Ezekiel encourages them to march forward into a better tomorrow. God was not done with Israel yet, and what he had planned was much more than just a return to what was. God wanted to build something even better in the Mountains of Israel if the people would only look to him.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 37
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