Thursday 3 November

Ezekiel 1:1-3:27

We have a raving lunatic in our midst.  Ezekiel was a full-blown whack-job. Reading his words gives me the shivers.  I’m just glad I never have to meet him.  Oh no, wait a minute... surely he won’t be in heaven will he?  Oh bum.  He just freaks me out.  He seems a little too caught up in the holiness and awesomeness of God.  I mean I’m all for a bit of engagement with the divine but surely everything should be done with a little moderation?  All this mention of wheels within a wheel and beastly faces is a bit scary for the children isn’t it??  All this repeated falling on your face surely just makes you look like a narcoleptic doesn’t it?  Surely Ezekiel would have been better off just to have held himself a little more under control, to have bought everyone’s favour with some nice amusing jokes and then nudged them gently towards their God?  But that wasn’t what he did.  And that wasn’t what he was called to do.  God uses different people in different ways and Ezekiel was the one He used to freak us out.  Ezekiel was so lunatically transfixed with the mega-ness of God that he could never be normal.  He couldn’t nudge us if he tried.  He only dealt in double-fist punches.  And that is why he sends shivers down my spine - he convicts me of my spiritual blandness.  Ezekiel exposes me as a minnow of holiness.  Ezekiel shows me how mini my experience of God actually is.  I’ve rarely fallen face down.  I’ve not seen a whirlwind, an immense cloud with flashing lighting and surrounded by brilliant light.  I’ve never been lifted up by the Spirit and deposited somewhere else.  But this time I read this book I want to get beyond my freakedness.  This time I want to really engage.  I want to see more of this Sovereign Lord, I want to join Ezekiel and get onto my face.

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Ah this canny Melchizedek fellow.  He certainly is one of the least expected characters to pop up in the middle of an ode to Jesus.  But the writer of the Hebrews has not completely lost the plot - he is using Melchizedek for a reason.  But the reason is one that will only really matter to the Hebrew mind so old Melchy just seems a bit out of place to us.  But let that not distract us from the awesome imagery of this passage.  Jesus sympathises with us.  Jesus understands us.  Jesus is able to deal gently with us.  And those three things are pretty flipping incredible.  Often I get stroppy when I think my wife does not understand me.  I get even more stroppy when I don’t understand myself.  But Jesus always understands me.  Jesus always sympathises with me in my chocolate-obsessed, bleary-eyed, intraspective days.  Jesus gets me.  And he gets you too.  He knows what it is to live in your skin and to have your kind of brain.  And he wants to deal gently with us.  To lovingly usher us into mercy and grace.  O how wonderful he is.

Psalm 119:153-160

Am I the only one getting slightly bored with this psalm?