Sunday November 13

Ezekiel 24:1-25:17

That, there is the very definition of agony.  And it seems to be agony caused by the Lord.  God takes away the delight of Ezekiel’s eye - He puts to death Ezekiel’s wife and He tells Ezekiel not to mourn.  I must confess that throughout all the Old Testament, this is the bit I have gagged on most ferociously.  This is the place where the wild, craziness of Ezekiel’s life and call seems to have gathered itself up into one sharp point... and stabbed me through the eye.  I have recoiled against it and really sought my soul over it.  Is this what God is like?  Does he epitomise cruel and ferocious anger to such an extent that even Quentin Tarrantino can have one of his characters quote him before unloading both barrels on a murderous campaign (Ezekiel 25:17 is quoted by Samuel L Jackson in the film Pulp Fiction).  Well, in my soul-searching I have reached two stopping houses; one is that this pain was not God’s fault but mankind’s and; two is that for all the pain the Ezekiel felt, God felt it more when he damned Jesus to hell.  All this ‘fury’ is a clear and precise act to melt away impurity.  Israel and the other nations and you and I and every person who has ever lived have put into ourselves disgusting destructive powers that are eating us alive.  And so the fury of God - the vengeance he is showering on the world is the fury of a surgeon’s knife that amputates a gangrene leg in order to save the soldier.  He does this to save us.  And, that is not all.  This ‘fury’ is also a clear and precise act to establish hope and peace - the purpose of the vengeance is not to ‘get even’ but to show what justice is, to show who rules the roost, to bring people into the sweet liberty of the knowledge of the LORD.  The wrath is not the end - the wrath leads to knowledge and understanding of God.  And in that, all this wrath and fury and agony inflicted on mankind is a pointer to the cross.  All this suffering by the prophet is a signpost to the suffering of The Prophet.  All this desecration of the sanctuary is a pre-cursor to the desecration of God’s true sanctuary - the Word become flesh.  Whatever pain Ezekiel or Moab or Philistia has felt, God has felt it more.  This horrific, ferocious pain caused by our sin and our rebellion and our disgusting behaviour ultimately fell squarely on Jesus.  If we want to know who our God is, if we want to understand the horrors of our sin and the beauty of God’s vengeance - for it truly is beautiful - then we need to look to the cross.  And not only look but to sit there and stare and pray and fast.  For there is the place where we see our God.

Hebrews 11:17-40

Do I regard disgrace for the sake of Christ of greater value than the treasures of Egypt?  I’m not sure that I do.  I feel conflicted.  Some of my life seems to hold true to this faith but some of it points in another direction.  Some days I’m all for it and some days I am not.  So what do I do?  Well, I think the words about Moses hold the key.  He, and all these other heroes of the faith did not just knuckle down and try harder and harder until they had grown a strong faith.  They fixed their eyes in the other direction - rather than looking more at themselves they “saw him who is invisible”.  They saw Jesus.  They didn’t just hear words or read the bible but they looked at Jesus face and saw his promises coming out of his mouth.  And so the world was not worthy of them.  We too could be like that.  We too could be heroes of the faith who outshine this dark place.  I know it is difficult to swallow but that is what the writer of the Hebrews is saying.  We can join all these heroes.  We can become one of their number.  And we get there through looking at him who is invisible - really looking at him and the better world he has for us.  If we can bear that - and all the suffering it will bring with it - then we will be commended by the Father.  If we keep looking at Him then we will conquer kingdom and administer justice and gain what was promised.  And He will not be ashamed to be called our God.

Psalm 124:1-8

If the Lord had not been on my side... the raging waters would have swept me away.