Year 3, Day 141: Ezekiel 15

The Usefulness of the Vine

The word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel.  There is a simple question that the Lord asks.  In what manner is the wood of a vine superior to that of the trees of the forest?

At first pass, it seems like a ridiculous question.  Who would ever use the wood of a vine to actually build something?  Nobody in their right mind would build out of a vine when a tree is just as available.  The wood of the vine is a vastly inferior building tool.

However, there is one answer in which this question makes absolute sense.  What does the vine do incredibly well?  To help us understand, we should remember that when the Bible talks about “the vine” it is usually talking about grapevines.  So what does the grapevine do exceedingly well – even better than the trees around it?  The vine produces incredible fruit.  A properly fertilized and tended grapevine will produce fruit like crazy.

So there is an answer that satisfies the question that the Lord asks.  The wood of the vine surpasses the wood of a tree when the plant is bearing fruit.  When the plants are alive, healthy, and living out their intended and created purpose the vine is superior to the tree.  This is especially true with respect to the harvest.

So what’s the point?  God’s people were called God’s people for one reason: to bear fruit.  What good is the vine if it refuses to bear fruit?  At least a fruitless tree can be cut down and used for building supplies.  But a vine?  What good is a fruitless vine except for kindling a fire?

Speaking of Fire

God drives the point even harder.  If part of a vine is burned, what use is the rest of the vine?  If both ends are burned, then what good is the vine at all?

You see, remember that God has been chipping away at the Hebrew people for a while now.  The people of the northern kingdom – Israel – went into captivity under Assyria a little more than a hundred years prior to the fall of Jerusalem.  Then the Assyrians marched the whole way up to Jerusalem before God struck them with a plague and they had to return home.  In that process, much of Judah was conquered.

The Babylonians returned and began a siege of Jerusalem that took more of the people into captivity.  This was the military campaign that brought the likes of Ezekiel and Daniel to Babylon.  At that point, all that was left was Jerusalem as a vassal state to Babylon.  Then they rebelled again Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar came back to finish the job completely.

As you can see, the “vine” of the Hebrew people had been burned before.  Israel was already in captivity.  Much of Judah was in captivity.  Jerusalem was in rebellion.  As God asks, when much of the vine is burned, what good is the part that remains except to burn it the rest of the way?

Applying the Lesson

I don’t often have a bunch of space at the end of a blog post, but this is an exceedingly short chapter today.  So let me spin a little bit of application out here today.

It is clear that idolatry has been a part of the problem for the Hebrew people all along.  If you read the account of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, it is idolatry that time and time again is mentioned.  The people’s hearts fall away from God because their hearts lust after other things.

Of course, this is the fundamental problem with humanity.  But it is especially dangerous among God’s chosen people.  After all, if the hearts of those who are supposed to proclaim the greatness of God are turned elsewhere, then what good are the chosen ones?  In what way are the chosen ones of the world different if they are no longer pointing people to God?

This is my fear for Christianity as well.  When God’s people of the New Covenant have their hearts turned increasingly more and more to the things of the world, what good are we?  As we become more and more like the world, how do we point towards God?  Isn’t that our calling?  Are we not supposed to go into the world and make disciples of Jesus Christ?  As we turn to the things of the world and our idolatry increases, what happens to our ability to make disciples of Jesus Christ?

Idolatry is not just a problem of the heart.  As this chapter in Ezekiel so poignantly illustrates, idolatry is a problem of fruit as well.  Idolatry is both an internal and an external problem.  For such a short chapter, this is an incredible appropriate and deep lesson.

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