First Things First

Ezekiel 5 to 8

There are lots of repetitions in todays readings. 
Things we’ve heard Jeremiah warn Israel about.

And these same things are revealed to Ezekiel. 

This is not news.

At all.

Ch 5: 7 “You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws.  You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.  8 Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says ‘I myself am against you, Jerusalem.  Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.  10 I will scatter all your survivors. 11 Because you have defiled my sanctuary.  I, myself, will withdraw my favor, I will not look on you with pity or spare you. ‘”

Pestilence, famine and sword. 

Ch 5:13 “Then my anger will cease, my wrath against them will subside and I will be avenged.  And when I have spent my wrath upon them they will know that I the LORD have spoken my zeal.”

These repetitions of alarm and calamity and coming judgment makes 70 years of captivity seem like an eternity.  Like there is no end to it and no one will be spared. 

Ezekiel receives another of his visions of God.  Ch 8:4 “And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel.” 

I wonder what that was like for Ezekiel.  Here.  Living in Babylon.  Seeing the fulness of God’s Glory as He dwelled in the temple in Jerusalem. 

In that same vision God shows Ezekiel, what else is happening in vicinity of the temple. There is a detestable idol in the inner court.   The very obvious manifestation of idolatry and idol worship among the people.  But there are women mourning the end of the growing season, mourning the death of Mammuz the god of fertility.  And there are men with their backs to the temple and their faces toward the sun, bowing to the east.  Ch 8:12 “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol?  They say, ‘The LORD does not see us; He has forsaken the land.’”

In these chapters, it is as if God is stacking up the evidenced of idolatry against Judah and Israel. All of them equally guilty of all the little things. There is one great big obvious idol in the inner court of the temple.  But the people are also individually guilty of the little ways they have deserted God. 

In this vision, which spans chapters 8 to 11, Ezekiel witnesses the departure of the Glory of God.  As a result of all the detestable things that were done to desecrate God’s treasured place (ch 7:22).  All the little evidences stacked up in front of him in these chapters, where Israel and Judah had every opportunity to clean up their act, but they already felt that God had abandoned them and didn’t see what they were doing.  Looking for help and for rescue, and filling the holes in their lives and hearts and souls with all the things that would never satisfy.  Filling their emptiness with all the things that were detestable to God.  

And today it makes me think about how subtly this happens in our lives and our days.  How very slowly other things creep into the sacred space we work so hard to cultivate.

For myself, the rhythm of reading and writing has slowed down.  Where the busyness of the days often crowds out the time I set aside for reading because is still have some blog posts in the draft folder and no one will really know.

And the most dangerous feature on the MyVersion app is “Catch Me Up”, where I can erase all the days I didn’t show up with the push of a button.  That little voice of my conscience instantly quieted. Technology.  Idolatry that doesn’t always show up as a big bring shiny obvious thing that you could easily identify in your life and step around.

Little things that creep in that don’t satisfy our hunger or our craving for more. Junk food that we feed our souls that takes over the top spots that demand our energy.  Convincing ourselves that it doesn’t matter and that no one sees, and that it isn’t taking over our lives by snatching up seconds, minutes for our dearest Love.  

So this is such a loud note to myself today!   And I’m thankful for the visions that God gives to Ezekiel, and the prophesies of Jeremiah, even though we grow so tired of hearing them.  But this is the moment where God shows up.  In all His Glory. God giving so much evidence of Himself and His Presence.   He calls us and reminds us that He does not forsake us to the darkness.  He is the Light of Life.   That God loves how we cultivate these sacred spaces and that He will keep us in perfect peace.  Milk and honey and all that He provides to satisfy. First fruits. Foods that satisfy and fill more deeply than anything else.   I love that today.