Get Up, Ezekiel
Naturally, the first verse of chapter 2 immediately sounds
backwards compared to where I left the blog yesterday. Here is God telling Ezekiel to get up! So much for humbleness before God, right?
Actually, this verse is completely in line with humbleness. First of all, notice that Ezekiel rises
because of God’s command. God picks and
chooses who can stand in His presence.
It is about humbleness and allowing God to dictate.
Second, notice how Ezekiel is able to stand up. Ezekiel can stand up only because the Spirit
of God is within him. In fact, the words
Ezekiel uses are really cool. Ezekiel
tells us that the Spirit entered him and set him on his feet. Ezekiel didn’t get up; the Holy Spirit got
Ezekiel up.
Obedience
Ezekiel is obedient to God in His presence. God continues to ask him for obedience. God tells Ezekiel that he is going to go
before the Hebrew people. God reminds
them that they are rebellious. God tells
them with no uncertain terms that they may listen or they may not. Either way, it is not Ezekiel’s job to make
them listen. Rather, it is Ezekiel’s job
to make sure that they know there has a prophet among them.
Again we see that God calls us to obedience and not
“success.” Success is determined by God,
not us. Success is determined in our
obedience to Him, not in our own vision of the grand fruit of our efforts. God can do marvelous things without us; He
invites us to obediently participate in what He is doing.
Did You Say they were Rebellious, God?
I love the way that God describes the Hebrew people of the
beginning part of the Babylonian captivity.
Remember, these are predominantly the people who have been dragged away
from Jerusalem. How does God speak about
them? God tells Ezekiel that he is among
briars and thorns and it will be as though he is sitting on scorpions.
LOL. There’s a job
description that just about everyone would sign up for, right? God has a knack for being honest. At times like this as I hear God speak about
humanity I can’t help but do anything but smile and shake my head. Yes, we really are that rebellious. Praise be to God that He continues to walk
with us and invite us in.
Confirmation
Again, God tells Ezekiel to be not afraid. Ezekiel isn’t to be afraid of their
looks. He isn’t to be afraid of their
words. He isn’t to be afraid of their
rejection. He is to do the work that God
has called him to do.
I know how Ezekiel must feel.
Imagine for yourselves how you would feel if someone tells you to do a
job and then warns you twice about what is going to happen. Ezekiel has to feel as though his time is
marked. He has to wonder how painful his
life is to become. But give credit to
Ezekiel. Ezekiel takes his place in a
long line of faithful people who came before him and who will come after
him. He steps up in obedience to God and
does as he is asked. That’s faith.
The Scroll
God gives Ezekiel one last parting word before moving beyond the
call and back into the vision. God tells
Ezekiel to not be rebellious like the Hebrew people were. God tells them to not learn their ways. God doesn’t want a relationship with Ezekiel
like He has with the Hebrew people.
After the warning, God shows Ezekiel a scroll. We’ll get into this scroll more tomorrow, but
for today it is enough to reflect on the fact that the words on the scroll were
lamentation. They are words of woe. They are words of mourning. These are the emotions of the Hebrew people
in Ezekiel’s present. Both the faithful
and the unfaithful to God are lamenting about what is happening to them.
God wanted Ezekiel to understand the relationship between God and
His people. They were lamenting because
of their circumstances. God was
lamenting because of the lost relationship.
For God, the circumstances of life don’t matter nearly as much as the
relationship of life that we have with Him and with each other.
In receiving the scroll, Ezekiel is quite literally bridging the
gap between God and man. Ezekiel is
stepping into his priesthood and seeing through both the eyes of his fellow
human beings but also through the eyes of God.
He will have one ear on the people and one ear on God from this point
forth.
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