Reflections on the book of the prophet Ezekiel

 Originally recorded October 2006 by David Guthrie

Reflection I:  The Vision of God

Ezekiel 1:1-11

Reflection II: The old is shattered and the new arises:

Ezekiel 2:3 - 3:11

This reflection takes the Old testament evening reading of Ezekiel 2:3 - 3:11 and explores the way in which the exile experience shattered the prevailing model of God adhered to by the Israelites and gave rise to a dynamic new model that could interpret the exile experience and provide a spiritual hope. The reflection draws a parallel to the shattering of the traditional Christian model of God and the generation of a new model that can interpret life today adn give us a new spirituality.

Reflection III:  What does God abominate?

Ezekiel  8

Ezekiel uncovers the abomination of Israel. Which challenges us to inquire: what is it that God abominates today? The question is central to much of the conflict occuring within then Christian community.

Reflection IV:  6 October: Judgement on Israel.

Ezekiel 9

Judgement on our global humanity in our own day

Reflection V:   A recapitulation

Recapulation of the reflections of the last week

Reflection VI:  The vision of hope

Ezekiel 11:13ff.

Written after the fall and destruction of Jerusalem, Ezekiel proclaims a vision of hope to the exiles based on the certainty that, even when experienced as judgment, grace is always creative and there is always hope.

Reflection VII:   Judgment in History

Ezekiel 12:1-16

 The refelction explores the concept that the judgment of god is worked out in history not only in the history of Israel but in what is happening in our contempoary world in which civilisaiton is under threat.

Refelction VIII: 12 October: Judgment is a long way off

Ezekiel 12;17-end

A popular response to Ezekiel's prophetic message was to project it into some distant futre, of little relevance to the present, whereas in reality it was upon them in the present. The theistic model of God put judgment into a distant "end-time" remote from the present and now no longer believed in except as a "theological" dogma; our reality is that judgment is now, is upon us and within history.

Reflection IX:  False Prophets

Ezekiel 13:1-16

Ezekiel struggles with the emergence of false prophets whose message contradicts his own, lulling the people's fears with a message of 'peace'. Is there false prophetic word in our own day?

Reflection X:  The people cannot hear the word of Yahweh

Ezekiel 14

The elders approach Ezekiel for a word from Yahweh, only to be told that Yahweh refuses to speak to them because their hearts are given over to idolatory. The reflection explores the role in history of Western civilisation in its spiritual calling, and its failure to respond to that call to the point that we are now deaf to the word of God.

Ezekiel 14:12 ff

Coming to grips with Ezekiel's vision of Yahweh in history brings us to confront our uncritical acceptance of the secular view of history and challenges us to see God in the hsitorical events of our own time.

Reflection XIII:  Individual responsibility

Ezekiel 18

Here is the first sounding of a note that will become a major theme in the New testament and the Christian Church: the responsibility of the individual before God, and God's saving action directed towards individuals. but as we live once more in a world under judgment, how can we interpret God's salvation towares us as individuals?

Reflection XIII: 18 October: The individual and judgment

Ezekiel 18

Reflection XIV:  God and his people

Ezekiel 20:1-20 

A passage in Ezekiel inserted by a later editor but incorporating the prophet's insights: God's immediate hand in history and the sense of overarching purpose in history.

Reflection XV:  Creative Judgment

Ezekiel 20:21ff 

From the secular, scientific point of view the prospects for the 212st century are grim. from a spiritual perspective, the prospects are grimmer. yet buries in Ezekiel's words to his shattered nation was also a promise and a hope, a promise and a hope that is ours also.

Reflection XVI: Tough Love

Ezekiel 24:15-end. 

Ezekiel's wife suddenly dies. An exploration of how we cope with grief.

Reflection XVII:  The Fundamental Challenge

Ezekiel 28:1-19

This passage is a word spoken to the king of Tyre: a word spoken to the "secular" world. the entire world of humanity lives under the dividne imperative.

Reflection XVIII:  Challenging the Individual

Ezekiel 3 3:1-20

The writings of Ezekiel are the first notes of the appreciation of the individual, a theme taken up strongly in the Christian era. But have we come to the point where the pendulum should swing back to the emphasis on the community.

Reflection XIX:  The Day Comes

Ezekiel 33:21 - end.

News arrives to the exiles in Babylon that Jerusalem has fallen. All hope is gone.
The challenge to the contemporary christian comunity to face the reality of what is happening to our world adn what the future holds. Our creative response.

Ezekiel 34:1-16

Following the theme of the previous reflection that calls us to face the reality that civilisation as we have known it is coming to an end under the impact of climate change and the exhaustion of energy resources, and that this, viewed from the perpective of grace, is God's action, how are we a Christians to respond to the situation?

Reflection XXI: 27 October: The Nature of Hope

 Ezekiel 34: 17 ff     

The reflection explores the nature of Christian hope as grace-based rather than law-based.

Reflection XXII: 30 October:  Dry Bones

Today: Ezekiel 37:1-14 

Can this church live?

Reflection XXIII:   Rooted in the New Covenant

Today: Ezekiel 37:15-end

In Christ.


 


 

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