Reading: Ezekiel 34-36, Psalm 41
We’ve reached the peak of the story in Ezekiel. Jerusalem has been destroyed, the Temple demolished. Ezekiel’s curse of muteness is broken and he is done lying on his sides and setting fire to this hair. The voice of the prophet, for so long restricted to judgment and wrath, is about to offer the greatest hope expressed in the entire Hebrew Scriptures. So let’s zoom out for a minute and look at where we are in the story.
The grand narrative we have been following wraps up in the book of 2nd Kings with the fall of Jerusalem and the departure of the people into exile. The prophets we have been reading have all been set during the latest centuries of the era of the kings. There were a few hints in Jeremiah and especially Isaiah about the coming restoration of Israel and it’s original purpose as the kingdom of priests who will bear witness to the creator God. But so far it has pretty much been hints. The book of Ezekiel has a lot more to say about the restoration than just about any other book in the Hebrew Bible, though I don’t make any claims as to how understandable it all is.
Our reading today opens with one of the harshest passages about bad leadership that you will find anywhere. We have seen before that God has nothing good to say about those who lead his people astray, who set them up for failure, and who feed them lies. Bad shepherds, God will level merciless judgment on them. This is one of those things that sounds really harsh until you apply it to your own times. Bad leaders cause massive problems. Think of the Flint water crisis here in the United States. Or the infrastructure of countries like Equatorial Guinea, still not recovered from the utterly selfish rule of Francisco Macias Nquema in the 1970s. Or the economic havoc wreaked by corporate financial leadership in 2007. Or… well, let’s put a seal on that, because we could go on all day. We all know leadership matters, and that bad leadership has real consequences. I for one am glad to hear that the ultimate judge has little patience for selfish leaders who do not care for their people. Note that this is not directed at failed leaders, as every leader in the Bible so far failed on some level. This is about those who know right, but do wrong, and lead others down the same path. God says they are the worst kind of people.
So what will he do about it? Ezekiel 34 is one of the great promises of God, and it reads like he is so done. Done with bad leaders. Done with his people suffering. Done, as we will see in a minute, with brothers taking advantage of one another and fighting. Done with his own people acting like they are not. So, what will he do? Instead of entrusting his people to another, he will shepherd them himself. God, the creator God, will care for his people directly. If we think back, this was the goal all along. The covenant as Sinai, the tabernacle, the priests, the sacrifices, were all directed at getting one human, one day a year, into the presence of the creator God without dying due to impurity. Now God says, instead of getting one human pure enough to be in my presence one day a year, I am going to act to make my people pure enough for me to be in their presence forever. How will he do it? By giving them a new heart and a new spirit. Oh, wait. He’s not done. I will take from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Remember the great theme that God looks on the heart? If he is going to be with humans and see their hearts, they are going to need new ones. Also, that new spirit? Nevermind. I will put my spirit in them. A new human spirit won’t cut it. Humans will be infected with the divine.
Well, that is a game changer. The divine spirit will inhabit humans! Always before the Spirit of God came and went from people. Here is totally inhabits them. It’s a big deal, a new way of being human. It will bring on the new era, ruled by the new David, one faithful shepherd who will serve God, point his people to him, and create a new world. Sounds like a character we have heard about before, in the book of Isaiah. A Servant of the Lord.
What an amazing promise! Now let’s talk about Jacob and Esau. What? That isn’t a natural progression to you? Well, it was to Ezekiel. The next passage is about Mount Seir and Edom, the nation descended from Esau. Do you remember the Jacob and Esau story? Brothers who couldn’t get along, bringing family division and misery to their parents. Sort of like some other brothers earlier in the story, Isaac and Ishmael, who couldn’t get along. And like some other brothers, the sons of Jacob, who couldn’t get along. Sort of like some other brothers, the sons of Gideon, who couldn’t get along. You get the picture. Edom and Israel, descendants of Jacob and Esau, still cannot get along. One of the first outcomes of the human problem is that families are divided. Adam and Eve hide themselves from one another and from God. Cain and Abel fight and Abel is murdered. Edom and Israel are just one more family fight in a series that goes back to day one. So what will God do about it? Dad is about to get involved in the brother’s quarrels, and there will be an end to them. He is going to step in a put a stop to it. How exactly this will play out remains to be seen, but the results will be a world of endless bounty, a place of wonder, ease, and peace. Paradise. One might call it Eden.