Saturday 5 November

Ezekiel 7:1-9:11

Not the injustice of Isaiah.  Not the personal waywardness of Jeremiah.  It is mis-placed worship that grabs Ezekiel by the hair and drags him to the temple.  God is spitting feathers.  He is hot - blazing hot - with anger.  How dare his own people waltz into his temple - the place where heaven touches earth, the place where God in his limitless mercy deigned to respond to the humble prayers of Solomon and make his bed - how dare they brazenly mince in there and then bow to the sun or mourn for Tammuz or draw reverential pictures of crawling things (bit weird that).  If I’m honest my first response to the passage was to place it at a distance - to assume that idolatry is something that sits at a distance to my everyday life.  But then I felt a bit sick.  I remembered my feelings when I walk past a nice house.  I remembered the times I use sex to make me feel good rather than to express love.  I remembered when I have not said something for fear of what others would say and have said something false to ease over a tricky time.  Far from being distant, idolatry is gnawing at my soul.  It beckons me to place my security and my aspirations away from God.  And, if I’m honest, it very often turns my everyday thoughts towards me, or something else - to anything other than Jesus.  It is a daily battle.  But we have a figure like that of a man on our side.  He is like fire from the waist down and as bright as glowing metal from there up.  He has stretched out his hand and he has taken us by the hair.  I think we’ll be safe with him.

Hebrews 6:13-7:10

We mostly dealt with Melchizedek yesterday - its a Hebrew question about the legitimacy of Jesus as the new high priest that the writer is answering.  But I’ve never had that question.  So I don’t really care about Melchizedek.  But I do care about this hope that is an anchor for the soul.  I often feel like I need an anchor.  I am prone to drifting with the tide and getting very close to some rocks.  My soul sometimes fades and at other times gets massively excited about slightly dubious things.  So I’m very grateful for this anchor metaphor.  I really want something firm and secure to fix myself in a good place.  And so I hear this as a call for me to continually fix myself to the hope of the gospel.  To keep reminding myself about what I’ve been saved for and who I now am.  I need to keep bringing myself back to Jesus, and his words of life to us all.  That is how to protect the soul. That is how to keep safe through all the storms.

Psalm 119:161-168

Great peace have they who love your law.