In this post I talked about God’s presence being mobile. I touched on the fact that Israel believed that their expulsion from the Promised Land meant their expulsion from God’s presence as well. The vision of Ezekiel, however, made it quite evident that God would go with them into exile.
I want to flesh this out a bit more.
God’s redemptive presence in exile with Israel is an example. While most of us may not be marched off into a foreign country of a strange language and culture, we all have our exiles. Those circumstances where our decisions have resulted in isolation, despair, and perhaps even a loss of hope.
EZEKIEL’S MESSAGE TELLS US THAT EXILE IS REDEMPTIVE.
But how does this work?
Let me take one step back and consider the larger landscape of the Old Testament and its theology of judgment. Many people avoid reading the OT, especially the prophets, because its pervaded with negative judgment language. “Christianity is all about love, joy, and peace! I don’t want to hear all of that!” The point that we often miss is that this positive status provided by grace is because of judgment—it comes through judgment; namely, the judgment that Jesus took upon himself.
This explains Jesus’ designation as “the wounded healer”. It’s only through his own individual exile that salvation comes to the world.
This means that God has redemptive purposes for every situation that we face. Going further still, it is the moments of extreme difficulty, challenge, brokenness, and decay that his power is most manifest.
It is in the darkness and despair that God has the opportunity to do two things: (1) bring healing on a profoundly deep level that’s perhaps even beyond our comprehension, and (2) demonstrate to us what he’s capable of in order to inspire faith.
Often times, the reason that we find ourselves in despair is because of our choices, and those choices stem from deep disfunction, decay, and wounds. The only way for the great surgeon to cut deep to remove the cancer of disfunction is by meeting us in exile. We must go deeper.
But what does this have to do with Ezekiel and Israel? Israel had some deeper lessons to learn about themselves, the Torah, and God himself. Israel didn’t fully understand that Torah observance wasn’t about the ritual, but about the posture of the heart. The purpose of the law code (specifically the holiness manifesto in Leviticus) is to function as a object lesson to teach the oneness and holiness of God. The sacrificial system and religious festivals were not all about simply keeping in good standing with God so that they could receive his blessings. No, the sacrificial system and religious festivals were about cultivating intimacy with their Father so as to implement a transformation of the heart. The missed the forrest for the trees.
The only way to get through to Israel so that they could understand this was to take it all away so that all was left was their pain and God, meeting face to face on the banks of the Chebar canal.
This is what redemption in exile is all about.
