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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, confront
Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord
says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites;
your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. On the day you were born
your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor
were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity
or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were
thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.”
“‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood,
and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like
a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts
had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.”
“‘Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that
you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and
covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant
with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became Mine.”
“‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and
put ointments on you. I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals
of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly
garments. I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a
necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears
and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver;
your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your
food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and
rose to be a queen. And your fame spread
among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given
you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Ezekiel 16:1-14
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Everything begins somewhere.
Sometimes we lose sight of that, especially when something
we are experiencing has been around for awhile. In fact, we often lose sight of
origins and as a result never get a full appreciation for who we’re talking to
or the place we might be visiting.
Point in case might be the city of Jerusalem and the people
who inhabit it. We could visit Israel here in the 21st century, soak in the
splendor and beauty of it, encounter its inhabitants, and never know their past,
a past that you would have to go back more than 2,000 years to find, a past
where the people of God and the sacred city were born.
To make sure we don’t lose sight of the genesis of not only Jerusalem
but the Israelites themselves, thank goodness we have the scriptures who give
us a rich insight into how the people of Israel and its most divine city got
its start. And in today’s passage, drawn from the opening passages of Ezekiel
16, we find the Lord using beautiful imagery, comparing the Israelites’ birth
to that of a baby emerging from its mother’s womb. Look at His words here:
The word of the Lord
came to me: “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and
say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and
birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your
mother a Hittite. On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you
washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped
in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of
these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on
the day you were born you were despised.”
“‘Then I passed by
and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I
said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and
developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown,
yet you were stark naked.”
“‘Later I passed by,
and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread
the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my
solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord,
and you became Mine.”
“‘I bathed you with
water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you
with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you
in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewelry:
I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring
on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you
were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly
fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest
flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on
account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty
perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord.” Ezekiel 16:1-14
As we have seen in prior chapters, God is speaking words
directly to His prophet, Ezekiel, and before He speaks so eloquently about how
He helped Jerusalem come alive, He makes sure that His messenger knows that the
city and its people would have to be confronted about their “detestable
practices”. For as much as God had blessed His city and even more so the
Israelites, they did not bless Him with their devotion and faithfulness in
return. More on that in tomorrow’s devotion but for today, we see the Lord
recalling how He helped the Israelites and made them His children.
First, it’s important to note that the Israelites were in
dire straits before the Lord intervened and delivered them. Go back and
remember the horrific oppression they suffered under Pharaoh who refused to
release them into freedom. The Israelites provided him lots of cheap labor so
he could construct his kingdom. Egypt’s leader did not value the Israelites beyond
this and as a result they were badly mistreated. From the time they were
birthed and truly started coming together as a people who God choose to be His
own, the Israelites were abused, neglected, and despised. No one in Egypt had
any compassion or pity for them.
It was at this point that the Lord intervened. He saw the
Israelites in need and chose to bring them out of their dire circumstances,
first appointing a leader, Moses, to guide them before using that leader to
guide them to freedom. God’s hand continued to be on His people as He led them
through a wilderness exodus to the land of Canaan, the land He had promised to
give them. Indeed, God watched His people grow into maturity and when they were
ready, He entered into a sacred covenant with them, swearing His allegiance to
them while ensuring they knew He expected and demanded that they give Him their
fullest allegiance in return.
In other words, He would be their God and they would be His
people.
What a blessing this was to the Israelites! They not only
had been set free from being enslaved but were given a place to live and were
promised the support and protection of God Himself.
From that point on, God made good on His side of the
covenant agreement. He continued to lavish His richest blessings on Israel,
adorning the nation nothing but the best He could provide. They had fine
clothes and abundant food to nourish themselves. They were a thing of beauty
and for any nations looking in from the outside, there was little doubt that
the Lord God Almighty was on the side of His people for Israel and its holy
city of Jerusalem only grew and grew in fame in the world. God’s splendor had
made His country and its people beauty perfect.
It was a real feel good story. A story of suffering before rescue,
of cruelty before liberation, of despair before hope. And yet, the Israelites messed it all us. They
tarnished this beautiful story of redemption and deliverance by failing to
appreciate the blessings God had brought them. They chose to be unfaithful to
Him after all He had done was be faithful to them. They turned their backs and
abandoned the only One who had never turned His back and abandoned them.
Imagine how you would have felt if you were God and had your
people treat you that way after all you had done for them. I think you can
understand why He was less than happy with His people and in a position where
He needed to teach them a lesson through some pretty harsh consequences,
consequences that we will see when we continue the study of Ezekiel 16
tomorrow.
In the meantime, perhaps we had better step back from our
lives today and really take account of all the ways God has blessed us in life
since we were birthed. Take some time to write down all the great things He has
done for you and make the list comprehensive. Just don’t list the big things
but focus on all the little things He has done, the little things we so often
take for granted. I think if we do this, and do it right, we will realize just
how much He has done for us and will be taken to a higher plain of gratitude.
But this exercise would not be complete without a secondary
task. For after you have accounted for all the many ways that God has blessed
you, now ask yourself how much you have given back to Him in return. Ask
yourself these questions:
Have I been as devoted to Him as He has been to me?
Have I been as faithful to Him as He has been to me?
Have I loved Him as much as He has loved me?
You see, we only get in trouble in life, when we allow
ourselves to stop making the Lord the object of our life’s attention and
affection. It’s easy to always get focused on ourselves and we need to remember
that when we are in the Lord, we may be in the world but we are not to be of it.
We need to always remember who we are and whose we are.
With this, I encourage you to keep your eyes fixed on the
Lord, not just today but every day He gives you. Make His desires the desires
of your heart. And never cease to give Him the fullest measure of your
adoration and praise.
Always keep in mind that He cherishes you more than you will
ever understand.
Stay true to the scriptures and cherish Him with all your
heart and mind and soul and strength as well (Mark 12:30).
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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