In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the fall of the city—on that very day the hand of the LORD was on me and he took me there. – Ezekiel 40:1

Today's Scripture Reading (July 14, 2020): Ezekiel 40

Fourteen years can make a huge difference in our lives. Fourteen years ago, my life looked a lot different than it does today. Fourteen years ago, I had different dreams and different expectations. I could not have dreamed what my life looks like now, then. I remember when I was in college and amid the stresses of exams and papers, occasionally just sitting and contemplating what my life might look like ten or twenty years down the road. But there is nothing about the reality of my life that was reflected in those dreams. That is not all bad. Maybe one of the best blessings that I know is simply this; "And when your dreams do not come true, may new dreams arise."

For Ezekiel, it has been fourteen years since the fall of Jerusalem. It has been fourteen years since Solomon's Temple was reduced to a pile of rubble. Ezekiel has been in exile much longer, probably closer to thirty-five years. Most of his adult life has been spent in exile. For the first two decades of his exile, there was the knowledge that Jerusalem, although rebellious and likely to have to pay a heavy price for that rebellion, still stood. There was a place that Ezekiel could look toward and call home. As a priest, a Temple stood where he had worked and ministered, a place that filled his memories with dimensions and features. But fourteen years ago, all of that had disappeared. Home no longer existed. The Temple was gone. We probably can't fathom the depth of that loss for one who was trained to perform his duties in the House of God built by Solomon.

Fourteen years ago, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed. The construction on Zerubbabel's Temple, the Second Temple of Jerusalem, would not begin for another forty or fifty years. For fourteen years, Ezekiel had lived in the space between the Temples.

There is much that we don't know about the Temple that Ezekiel talks about in the latter chapters of his prophecy. There is intense discussion about whether this Temple is past or future (if it is past, we have no idea when or where such a Temple would have been built), or even if the vision of the Temple is real or a flight of fancy. But this much we do know. The prophecy of Ezekiel's Temple consumes the last days of Ezekiel's life. This prophecy is his final message to those in exile who have followed him and listened to his teachings. And this prophecy of a future Temple is intended to be a message of hope.

Fourteen years ago, the Babylonians destroyed Solomon's Temple. But Ezekiel wants to leave his people with a message that God is not finished with them yet. Ezekiel points to a future Temple that will be even grander than that of Solomon. Ezekiel's Temple is a marvel of engineering that no one, not the Babylonians who destroyed Solomon's Temple, and not the Romans, who destroyed Zerubbabel's or Herod's Temple, would be able to destroy again.

Welcome to Ezekiel's Temple.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 41