12 August 2024 Ezekiel 1:2-5, 24-28c

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Please read the passage before reading the commentary

“The fifth day of the fourth month of the fifth year etc.”  According to scholars, that would be July 31, 295 BCE.  The river Chebar was something like a canal or offshoot of the Euphrates that bypassed the city of Babylon.  Ezekiel was a Jewish priest.  He was the prophet who was with his people in Exile in Babylon.  His presence on Babylon is a sign that God was remaining with God’s people in their exile and sorrow.

A storm wind from the north brought thunder, lightning, and noisy winds that revealed the presence of the Lord to Ezekiel.  From the cloud of fire Ezekiel saw four creatures that had human form.  Above the firmament, which recalls the creation accounts of Genesis 1-3, Ezekiel saw one with the appearance of the man whose upper body seemed enveloped with lightning and whose lower body seemed like flames of fire.  This was how the book of Ezekiel described the glory of the Lord.

The hand of the Lord had come upon Ezekiel in this vision.  The phrase “Hand of the Lord” became the book’s common way of introducing the prophetic message to Ezekiel. In exile God still remained with God’s people.

What about us?  As we negotiate our lives with their stresses and distresses, what signs can we discern that show us that God remains with us in trying times?  Do our storm clouds, thunder and lightning flashes and the roar of high winds declare the glory of God or leave us in fear and trembling?  Do we also see God’s glory in the quietness of a sunrise or sunset, or in the peace (or lack of peace) at home with family? God remains with us as God once was with Ezekiel.  The stories of the Scriptures challenge us to see God with us  at every phase and step in our like’s journey, both the bad and the good ones.