Ezekiel: A Vision for Exile

Ezekiel: A Vision for Exile

Introduction: So when we were all talking about 2020 vision for this year, did any of us see this? Did you think you’d have to wear a mask into the bank? Did you think toilet paper would be more pricey than a barrel of crude oil? Did you know you had day and night pajamas and church pajamas? Did you ever think you would look forward to taking the trash out. 

A Disappointed Time

Disappointed people and disappointed priest/prophet.

The old vision still occupied their minds. Vivid visual verdant temple! The Glory of God in that old beautiful place. Ezekiel, the priest, would have taken his place there in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 96.9). Psalm 84.1-10 could have been his Psalm.

A Dislocated Place

Somewhere by the side of the Chebar Canal. Halfway between Baghdad and Basra. Not where they want to be.

A Discouraged Team

Jeremiah “For thirty-five years Jeremiah had not ceased to speak out, but with little success. Since the prophet (that is, Jeremiah) had so exhausted himself, God wanted to give him a helper. It was certainly a great relief for Jeremiah, who was in Jerusalem, to learn that the Holy Spirit was speaking in similar tones through another voice...Therefore, in order to relieve his servant, God gave him a companion to teach among the Babylonians the same things that Jeremiah had not ceased proclaiming in Jerusalem.” John Calvin’s first lecture on Ezekiel. He did 33 lectures on 12 (of 48) chapters of Ezekiel. This was his final work.

Ezekiel

“They had lost their mental map, so Ezekiel was called upon to provide them with a new one in which the words of prophecy replace the sights and sounds of a sacred building...God is greater than Jerusalem, greater than Babylon, greater even than any human symbol or language can grasp." Ronald Clements. Ezekiel. Westminster/John Knox Press. 1996. Page 14.

A New Map

From Jerusalem to Babylon. God goes with his people. Ezekiel 11

From Chebar to the River of God and the promise of New Creation. Ezekiel 47

a new river.

a new garden.

a new city.

a new creation.

Hope isn’t hope until it gets here. If it is trapped in the future it is not hope. Prophetic hope doesn’t just prepare you for tomorrow it sustains you by transforming today.

God is doing something HERE.

God is doing something NOW.

God is doing something with US.