Ezekiel’s Hope
Ezekiel 34:11-16; 20-24
Some of the most powerful and profound insights that we find Bible come out of times of great hardship and anxiety. Point blank: it seems as if when there is worry and trouble, the words that truly endure are the ones that focus on hope, that look forward, even when the people themselves are literally standing in charred ash. It not to say that there weren’t voices of concern or pessimism about the future at the time… in fact, they were probably all too abundant… but the words that truly endure, are the ones that look ahead with a sense of hope and optimism… proclaiming loudly that God is clearly at work, even when all around seems to be hopeless.
Ezekiel knew this more than most. As a prophet, he lived in perhaps one of the most devastating times that the people of Israel had ever experienced: the outright failure, collapse, and destruction of the entire nation of Israel. Ezekiel himself would be dragged into exile, to an encampment south of the city of Babylon, where he would spend the rest of his days. As much as we lament about the decline of the church in North America, what Ezekiel and the people of his day experienced was far worse, and the outlook for the future by all accounts was extraordinarily bleak. The trashbin of history is filled with tiny kingdoms having been swallowed up by the great empires, and certainly following both Assyrian and Babylonian expansion, other smaller nations in the area never recovered. Even the North Kingdom of Israel, 200 years before Ezekiel had been demolished by the Assyrians, and through history would never be anything more than a client state for occupying powers. When Jerusalem and Judea fell in Ezekiel’s time, the prospect was just as bleak… and it seemed likely that the Israelite identity would fade, and their quirky monotheistic faith would only ever be found in history books.
But we know that’s not what happened in the long-run.
It was certainly true that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, along with the great Temple that Solomon had built. It was true that the people were scattered to the corners of the Empire, with some of the best and brightest held captive in Babylon. For eighty years, for two full generations, children were raised without a homeland… as prisoners or exiles for their entire lives. By all accounts, this would have demolished their national identity, their sense of who they were… but as the darkness was falling, two prophets in particular, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, spoke of a hope that God would not abandon the people, and that something entirely new was coming.
“For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and I will seek them out… I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
Words of assurance, that even take it a step further:
“I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land.” –and goes on to describe the care and nurture in seeking all those who are lost.
I really think the context of this is very important. As a church both locally and nationally we have faced our own challenges, many of them very real… but none of them have been to the immense and devastating scale as those first years of the Babylonian invasion and exile. Nothing which we face currently as a church matches what early Christians faced than six to seven hundred years later under Roman persecution. When we find ourselves concerned with the future, or worried about what is to come, remember Ezekiel’s Hope… and what his perspective was when he wrote those words.
We can take it either two ways… we can either treat Ezekiel as being hopelessly deluded in his optimistic outlook, like the Black Knight from Monty Python’s the Holy Grail… or maybe his insight shows us something about our own tendency to be pessimistic about things. After all, pessimism is an expression of fear, and as Jesus once taught his disciples that fear is what erodes our faith, not doubt.
Ezekiel is saying that no matter what happens God prevails. There is no place that is too far from God’s love and vision for a better world. No matter how dark the present may seem, God is present now, and will be present in generations far beyond our own, acting and working in ways far beyond our imagination.
Today is Christ the King Sunday… and while it may have seemed counter-intuitive to go with Ezekiel’s hope as the main part of my message, there’s a method to my madness. Christ the King Sunday touches on this optimistic view of the future. Our hope in God, our trust that ultimately in all things God in Christ wins out no matter what the present circumstances might be. Justice and peace will reign, and in this is the hope that we have.
But this type of optimism is not simply a passive one, or out of a sense of resignation… saying that God is in charge, and will be doing something in the future, but not now. That’s not what Ezekiel was saying at all. Both he and Jeremiah implored the survivors of the Babylonian onslaught to remain faithful, to not lose hope, and to keep the candle of faith burning within in them in the midst of the darkness. God will indeed prevail, there is hope for the future, so live your lives now in the present with this kind of living hope.
And that’s what the people did… and guess what… they discovered something new about their faith. They learned that God’s promises and love continued to be with them, even though their beloved Temple had been smashed and burned beyond all recognition. They learned that God continued to be present with them, even in a strange land… and that they began to understand God not as their own local Deity, but in fact, the Lord of all creation… By keeping their hope alive, the very hope Ezekiel called them to, their own faith evolved into something new… which would allow them to not only survive the exile, but would grow, survive and thrive until this very day… in both Judaism and Christianity. It would open the door to the understanding of a Messiah, of God walking amongst us, showing us a glimpse of the kingdom of God in the person and work of a humble Galilean teacher… who especially on this Sunday, we call “king.”
It is no accident that this sense of hope builds up on this last day of the Christian calendar. Next week Advent begins, and it is appropriate that our calendar ends in the same way that it begins, with this deep-seated proclamation of hope.
Ezekiel’s hope teaches us to remember that in times of darkness, God remains very much in charge… and it allows us the strength to live out our lives each day, even when we might feel overwhelmed by circumstance. but know this: in God, we are not alone… not for a day, not for an instant. The challenge for us today is living that out…
Amen.
Some of the most powerful and profound insights that we find Bible come out of times of great hardship and anxiety. Point blank: it seems as if when there is worry and trouble, the words that truly endure are the ones that focus on hope, that look forward, even when the people themselves are literally standing in charred ash. It not to say that there weren’t voices of concern or pessimism about the future at the time… in fact, they were probably all too abundant… but the words that truly endure, are the ones that look ahead with a sense of hope and optimism… proclaiming loudly that God is clearly at work, even when all around seems to be hopeless.
Ezekiel knew this more than most. As a prophet, he lived in perhaps one of the most devastating times that the people of Israel had ever experienced: the outright failure, collapse, and destruction of the entire nation of Israel. Ezekiel himself would be dragged into exile, to an encampment south of the city of Babylon, where he would spend the rest of his days. As much as we lament about the decline of the church in North America, what Ezekiel and the people of his day experienced was far worse, and the outlook for the future by all accounts was extraordinarily bleak. The trashbin of history is filled with tiny kingdoms having been swallowed up by the great empires, and certainly following both Assyrian and Babylonian expansion, other smaller nations in the area never recovered. Even the North Kingdom of Israel, 200 years before Ezekiel had been demolished by the Assyrians, and through history would never be anything more than a client state for occupying powers. When Jerusalem and Judea fell in Ezekiel’s time, the prospect was just as bleak… and it seemed likely that the Israelite identity would fade, and their quirky monotheistic faith would only ever be found in history books.
But we know that’s not what happened in the long-run.
It was certainly true that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, along with the great Temple that Solomon had built. It was true that the people were scattered to the corners of the Empire, with some of the best and brightest held captive in Babylon. For eighty years, for two full generations, children were raised without a homeland… as prisoners or exiles for their entire lives. By all accounts, this would have demolished their national identity, their sense of who they were… but as the darkness was falling, two prophets in particular, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, spoke of a hope that God would not abandon the people, and that something entirely new was coming.
“For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and I will seek them out… I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
Words of assurance, that even take it a step further:
“I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land.” –and goes on to describe the care and nurture in seeking all those who are lost.
I really think the context of this is very important. As a church both locally and nationally we have faced our own challenges, many of them very real… but none of them have been to the immense and devastating scale as those first years of the Babylonian invasion and exile. Nothing which we face currently as a church matches what early Christians faced than six to seven hundred years later under Roman persecution. When we find ourselves concerned with the future, or worried about what is to come, remember Ezekiel’s Hope… and what his perspective was when he wrote those words.
We can take it either two ways… we can either treat Ezekiel as being hopelessly deluded in his optimistic outlook, like the Black Knight from Monty Python’s the Holy Grail… or maybe his insight shows us something about our own tendency to be pessimistic about things. After all, pessimism is an expression of fear, and as Jesus once taught his disciples that fear is what erodes our faith, not doubt.
Ezekiel is saying that no matter what happens God prevails. There is no place that is too far from God’s love and vision for a better world. No matter how dark the present may seem, God is present now, and will be present in generations far beyond our own, acting and working in ways far beyond our imagination.
Today is Christ the King Sunday… and while it may have seemed counter-intuitive to go with Ezekiel’s hope as the main part of my message, there’s a method to my madness. Christ the King Sunday touches on this optimistic view of the future. Our hope in God, our trust that ultimately in all things God in Christ wins out no matter what the present circumstances might be. Justice and peace will reign, and in this is the hope that we have.
But this type of optimism is not simply a passive one, or out of a sense of resignation… saying that God is in charge, and will be doing something in the future, but not now. That’s not what Ezekiel was saying at all. Both he and Jeremiah implored the survivors of the Babylonian onslaught to remain faithful, to not lose hope, and to keep the candle of faith burning within in them in the midst of the darkness. God will indeed prevail, there is hope for the future, so live your lives now in the present with this kind of living hope.
And that’s what the people did… and guess what… they discovered something new about their faith. They learned that God’s promises and love continued to be with them, even though their beloved Temple had been smashed and burned beyond all recognition. They learned that God continued to be present with them, even in a strange land… and that they began to understand God not as their own local Deity, but in fact, the Lord of all creation… By keeping their hope alive, the very hope Ezekiel called them to, their own faith evolved into something new… which would allow them to not only survive the exile, but would grow, survive and thrive until this very day… in both Judaism and Christianity. It would open the door to the understanding of a Messiah, of God walking amongst us, showing us a glimpse of the kingdom of God in the person and work of a humble Galilean teacher… who especially on this Sunday, we call “king.”
It is no accident that this sense of hope builds up on this last day of the Christian calendar. Next week Advent begins, and it is appropriate that our calendar ends in the same way that it begins, with this deep-seated proclamation of hope.
Ezekiel’s hope teaches us to remember that in times of darkness, God remains very much in charge… and it allows us the strength to live out our lives each day, even when we might feel overwhelmed by circumstance. but know this: in God, we are not alone… not for a day, not for an instant. The challenge for us today is living that out…
Amen.
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