Friday, April 25

Ezekiel 17: This allegorical riddle is concerned with the geopolitical maneuvering dominant in the royal court at Jerusalem during the period between 597 and 586 B.C.

The first eagle in the riddle is the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (604-562); the second is Pharaoh Psammetichus II of Egypt (595-589). Sitting at either end of the Fertile Crescent, both Babylon and Egypt sought to make their military, economic, and political power felt throughout the region, and each of these two great centers had its friends and confederates within the Jerusalem court.

The removed branch in the allegory is King Jehoiakin of Judah, deposed from his throne in 597 and transported to Babylon. The new seed in the allegory is King Zedekiah, who replaced Jehoiakin and served as a vassal of Babylon. Because of the many machinations in his court, Zedekiah’s foreign policy was marked by vacillation and instability. Unable to maintain his covenant with God, he was likewise unable to maintain his vassal covenant with Babylon. The one infidelity led to the other (verses 11-19).

Even though he was thriving under Babylonian suzerainty, the allegory goes on to say, Zedekiah endeavored to forsake his obligations to the political authority at the western end of the Fertile Crescent, and began to cultivate friendship with the eastern end, Egypt. Now he must pay for it. His sin consisted in seeking a purely political solution for a mainly spiritual and moral problem.

This oracle ends, nonetheless, on a note of future hope for the house of David, a hope that the Christian knows is fulfilled in great David’s greater Son.

Saturday, April 26

Ezekiel 18: This is an oracle about personal responsibility, a matter on which the mind of Ezekiel may be contrasted with modern sensibilities. Modern ideas of individual moral responsibility often run along such lines as, “You must not do anything you can’t live with.” According to this perspective, moral norms are established by the limits of a person’s psychological comfort; what is evil or good is determined by whether or not a person can endure having done it.

Ezekiel knows nothing of such nonsense. For him personal moral responsibility means that a man must ultimately be responsible, not to the dubious dispositions of his own conscience, but to the all-righteous God who gave the law.

Each man must respond for himself, however, not for either his ancestors or his progeny. The people at Jerusalem needed to hear such a message, because some of them contended that they were being punished—with doubtful justice!—for the sins of their fathers. Ezekiel was charged to set them straight on this matter.

Although the social and even psychological effects of sin are handed down from one generation to the next, the moral burden of sin is not. Each man will answer for himself and his own moral decisions, not for those of his grandparents. The retributive principle is always: “The soul that sins shall die.”

Meanwhile, the possibility of moral change remains for each of us as long as we are alive. A bad man can become good, and a good man can become bad. Our moral fate depends on what we become, not on what we were before.

The closing part of this oracle stands as a strong witness against any religious theory claiming that God is glorified even by someone’s eternal loss. No, eternal loss is a pure waste of proffered salvation. God is not glorified by anyone’s going to hell.

Sunday, April 27

Ezekiel 19: This passage is a "lamentation" (verses 1,14), descriptive of Jerusalem’s recent history, in a tripartite allegory. The lioness, Judah, gave birth to two kings–the two lions–whose stories are told in the first two parts of this allegory.

The first king (verses 3-4) is Jehoahaz, who took the throne when the great Josiah was killed in 609 at the Battle of Megiddo. His very short reign (only two verses here) came to an end that same year, because he was deposed by Pharaoh Neco and taken in bondage to Egypt (2 Kings 23:31-34).

The second king (verses 5-9) is Jehoiakin, deposed by the Babylonians in 597 after an unsuccessful rebellion on his part, and carried away to exile in Babylon, along with the cream of Judah’s leadership, a group including Ezekiel himself (2 Kings 24:8-16).

At the time of this oracle, both of these deposed "lions" are still alive–one in Egypt, the other in Babylon—but they are impotent to help their mother, Judah. This mother is then portrayed as a vine in the third and final section of the oracle (verses 10-14), which describes the devastation attendant on the inept and irresponsible government of Judah’s last king, Zedekiah.

Monday, April 28

Ezekiel 20: This oracle, delivered on August 14, 591 B.C., was occasioned by an inquiry made to Ezekiel by a group of exiled Jewish elders, apparently undeterred by their earlier failure in 14:1-11.

So Ezekiel answers them: Beginning with Israel’s ancient sojourn in Egypt, prior to the Exodus, idolatry has been an abiding sin of God’s Chosen People. That rebellion against the Lord in Egypt was simply continued during the people’s wandering in the desert of Sinai. During both of those periods God spared His people, so that their enemies (and His) might not take comfort from their destruction.

Indeed, because Israel constantly violated the Lord’s ordinances, these ordinances proved not to be good for them, inasmuch as the very disobedience rendered the people morally (verses 23-26). (This is a motif, of course, that St. Paul will later develop in his Epistles: the futility of the Law to bring about salvation.) Then, even after their settlement in the Promised Land, the people continued their ancient infidelities.

Now, after all this, do these elders dare to come and "inquire of the Lord"? They are told that this inquiry amounts to a mockery. They have always known God’s will, yet they have decided to disobey it. Why should the Lord have anything further to say to them? (We should particularly observe here that, among the sins of Israel specifically named, child sacrifice is very prominent. Since the murder of unborn children is one of the most serious offenses of our own society, this oracle seems especially relevant today.)

Even after conveying this oracle, however, Ezekiel goes on in verses 32 to 44 to deliver a prophecy of Israel’s eventual restoration. Although Israel’s kings have brought the nation low, God is still Israel’s true king (20:33).

Tuesday, April 29

The Epistle to the Ephesians: The epistle that we begin today seems to have been written during the two years (probably autumn 58 to autumn 60) that Paul the Apostle spent in prison at Caesarea (cf. Acts 24:27). Likely written within days of the epistles to Philemon and to the Colossians, this letter appears to have been sent originally to the Christian church at Laodicea, another of the churches of Asia Minor. Indeed, this identification was made by Marcion in the 2nd century, and in the earliest manuscript copies of this epistle (a 2nd century papyrus and both of the early 4th century parchments) the reference to Ephesus in Ephesians 1:1 is missing.

From the Book of Revelation (1:11 – 3:22) it is clear that the various churches of Asia Minor were accustomed to sharing letters they received from the apostles, so it should not surprise us to find it in this instance as well. Addressed originally to the church at Laodicea, then, this epistle made its rounds to the other Asian churches, beginning at Colossae (cf. Colossians 4:16). Since the largest of these churches was at Ephesus, the latter would soon possess the largest number of copies. It was natural, then, that our epistle came gradually to be called the Epistle to the Ephesians, the name that first appears in the manuscripts of the 5th century.

In the letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, written during Paul’s two year imprisonment at Caesarea, there now appears an important theological concept not found his earlier epistles: the truth that Christ is the “head” of his body, the Church. As early as the spring of 55, to be sure, Paul had repeatedly referred to the Church as the body of Christ (I Corinthians 10:16f.;12:12-27), a theme that he took up again a couple of years later in the Epistle to the Romans 12:1-5. He continues this same theme in the letters to the Colossians (3:15) and Ephesians (2:16;4:4,12;5:30).

There is a difference now, however. For the first time, Paul calls Christ the “head” of his body which is the church (Colossians 1:18; Ephesians 1:22f.;5:23). He goes on to spell out what this means, showing that Christ is “the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God gives it to grow” (Colossians 2:19). Then, in a famous passage, he describes this growth as one of mutual love: “Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow unto him who is the head, that is, Christ. For in him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each member does it work” (Ephesians 4:15f.).

We modern people are thoroughly familiar with the idea that the head is the governing part of the whole body, and it is normal for us to assume that our thinking takes place in our heads. For that reason it may be difficult for us to appreciate how revolutionary that idea must have seemed back when Paul the Apostle wrote it in the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians. It appears that Greek medicine had only recently arrived at such a concept, because we do not find it in the medical literature of earlier periods (Aristotle, for example). Indeed, it seems that the New Testament contains our first literary references to that medical insight.

Just where did Paul find this idea? The New Testament gives us a very big hint on this point. During much of those two years that he spent in prison at Caesarea, Paul was being visited and looked after by a physician, Luke, later the author of a gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.

Keeping in mind that Luke wrote the latter book, it is not too difficult keeping tabs on his whereabouts, just by noticing where he uses "we" and "us" in the narrative. Having been left by Paul at Philippi several years earlier (compare Acts 16:17 with 17:1), Luke joins him once again at that same city, in the spring of 58, for the last trip to Jerusalem (20:6). He evidently becomes separated from Paul briefly during the strife in Jerusalem recorded in Acts 21-23, but he soon arrives at Caesarea where Paul is under guard (Acts 23:31-35;24:26f.). We are certain on this point, because Luke is mentioned as being present when Paul wrote to Philemon (24) and the Colossians (4:14). In fact, Luke “the beloved physician” will stay with Paul his trip to Rome (Acts 27:1) and through his two more years of house arrest in that city (II Timothy 4:11; cf. Acts 28:30).

It was evidently in prison, during long talks with his friend, physician and fellow-missionary Luke, then, that Paul became familiar with the recently discovered importance of the head as the organ of thought and as the governing organism of the body. It thus became clear to him that, if the church be called the body of Christ, as he had already been teaching for several years, then the true head of this body is Christ the Lord. It is by Christ, gloriously reigning at God’s right hand in heaven, that the Church on earth is directed, governed and coordinated. It is likewise from the “mind of Christ” that all truly Christian thinking proceeds. Because He is Lord, Jesus is head, the source of thought.

Wednesday, April 30

Ezekiel 22: This chapter contains three oracular prophecies, joined together by a common theme: ritual uncleanness, understood either literally or as a metaphor. Ezekiel, as a priest dedicated entirely to the correct worship of the true God, was particularly sensitive to this matter of cleanness, or purity, in both the sacrifice and the priest.

The first oracle (verses 1-16), directed against Jerusalem, is full of the imagery of blood, any flowing of which rendered a person ritually unclean. Blood is also, however, an image of violence.

The second oracle (verses 17-22) is directed against all unfaithful Israelites, who are described as dross (that is, metallic impurity), which God will clean away in the coming smelting process of His historical judgment. Ezekiel doubts that any true metal will be found once this process is complete.

The third oracle (verses 23-31) is against the Holy Land itself, which suffers uncleanness because of those who live there. These have defiled God’s land with bloodshed and other forms of impurity, rendering the land unholy and no longer fit to contain the Lord’s true worship.

Thursday, May 1

Ascension Thursday: This day, the fortieth since Easter, marks the celebration of the Lord’s ascent into heaven as recorded in the Book of Acts 1:1–11. As a divinely revealed mystery of the Christian faith, this heavenly glorification of Jesus Christ as the Lord of history and the destiny of the nations is beyond all human description. In the New Testament, nonetheless, there are several ways in which it is spoken of. Of these, we may draw particular attention to certain images of posture: the glorified Christ is portrayed in heaven as both sitting and standing, and each of these postures adds certain dimensions to our understanding of this feast.

First, sitting. Jesus is now enthroned at God’s right hand. Psalm 110:1 was a major Old Testament text that the early Christians regarded as both prophetic and interpretive of his glorification: “The Lord said to my Lord: ‘Sit thou at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Hardly any other line of the Hebrew Bible was dearer to the early believers in Jesus. He himself had quoted it to his enemies, trying to get them to consider his own identity as God’s true Son (cf. Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42).

This reference of the Psalter to Christ’s enthronement was also quoted in the first sermon of Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:34) and became the foundation of some of the most important pronouncements of the New Testament about Christ and our salvation (cf. Mark 16:19; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). Similarly, this psalm’s reference to the subjecting of Jesus’ enemies beneath his feet was to lay the basis for important things that the New Testament would have to say about the end of history (cf. Acts 2:35f; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:22; Hebrews 10:12f; and perhaps 1 Peter 3:22). When the Bible describes Jesus as “sitting” in heaven, the emphasis is placed on his role as king and judge. His throne is for ever and ever (cf. Hebrews 1:8).

But the Lord is also said to “stand” in heaven. Though this image appears less often, it is found in two texts of great majesty and drama. Both places describe ecstatic visions of individual Christians.

Thus, we read, in Acts 7:55f, that Stephen “looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said: ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.’”

The other passage is found in the Book of Revelation, which describes a vision of the Apostle John: “And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the Throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb was standing, as though slain” (5:6). In the culture of the Bible, standing is the normal posture for prayer. It would appear, then, that in these texts that describe Jesus as “standing” in heaven that the accent is on his role as our intercessor and mediator at the Throne of the Father.

Friday, May 2

Ezekiel 24: This chapter is constructed of two quite separate parts, the first being the allegorical oracle of a pot cooking on the fire, the second a prophecy and prophetic action connected with the death of Ezekiel’s wife.

The first oracle (verses 1-14) is dated on January 15, 588 B.C., the day that Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Jerusalem. This siege is compared to the flames surrounding a pot until its contents are cooked. This pot is, of course, Jerusalem, where the long siege has begun. The rust on this metal pot, which is the same color as blood and is likened to blood, carries forward the image of dross from Chapter 22.

The second oracle (verses 15-27) is occasioned by the sudden death of Ezekiel’s wife. He is not the only biblical prophet whose "home life" becomes part of the prophetic message. Thus, Hosea was obliged to marry a prostitute as part of his prophetic vocation, both Hosea and Isaiah were told to give strange and symbolic names to their children, and Jeremiah is commanded to remain celibate as a witness to the imminent passing of the era.

In the case of Ezekiel, he is ordered not to mourn at the death of his wife, no matter how grieved he feels. He must then interpret this strange behavior to his neighbors, giving him the opportunity to explain why, in their concrete historical circumstances, it would be inappropriate for them to mourn, even though their hearts are broken. Thus, in his grief Ezekiel himself becomes a "sign" to the people who are soon to see their beloved city destroyed.

Friday, April 18

Ezekiel 10: The wooden statues of the Cherubim, with their wings spread over the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, were but symbols of the angels of the Presence, the heavenly Cherubim who serve to support the Throne of God.

Now Ezekiel sees these heavenly spirits themselves, and they are identical with the Four Living Creatures that he had beheld in his inaugural vision in Chapter 1, where they bore, as here, the Cloud of the divine Presence. They will appear again, of course, in Revelation 4.

The burning coals from within their whirling wheels, full of the divine holiness, are destructive of those whose brows have not been marked by the angelic scribe, who also appears again in this chapter.

Besides destroying the wicked, this divine fire purifies God’s loyal servants (cf. Isaiah 6:6f). As the chapter closes, the action moves to the east gate of the temple, facing the Mount of Olives. It is at this gate that Ezekiel will receive the two oracles in Chapter 11.

Saturday, April 19

Ezekiel 11: The first oracle in this chapter addresses a slogan going around Jerusalem at the time, descriptive of the city’s coming destruction. The slaying of Jerusalem’s citizens, says the oracle, will ultimately be the fault of their leaders, not of the Babylonian besiegers. The latter are but instruments in the divine judgment.

The leaders back at Jerusalem planned big things for themselves, and their big plans are addressed in the second oracle. When Ezekiel and his other companions, including the cream of Jerusalem society and its most competent citizens, were taken hostage to Babylon in 597, some of those Israelites who remained in the Holy Land began to feel pretty good about their own prospects, now that the better rivals were gone. With respect to their brethren who had been carried away, they reflected: “Well, too bad for them, but that leaves more for us.”

The burden of this second oracle is to reassure those captives in Babylon that the Lord had not forgotten them and that He was determined to restore them. Indeed, it was on them that His coming blessings would fall, for their restoration is the substance of the great prophecy here about newness of heart, which becomes so important a theme in the New Testament (See especially Hebrews 8.)

As this chapter ends, the Cloud of the divine glory moves east onto the top of the Mount of Olives, and Ezekiel is restored to Babylon, where he narrates his visions and oracles to his companions in exile.

Sunday, April 20

Ezekiel 12: Once again Ezekiel is charged to act out an elaborate pantomime as a message for his fellow Israelites in exile. Whereas the previous such actions, in Chapters 4-5, had to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and the sufferings of her citizens, the present instance is concerned with the experience of the coming new exile of those who still remained back home.

When his fellow exiles ask him, “What are you doing? (12:9), Ezekiel responds with a stirring oracle by way of explanation: To those Jewish exiles already in Babylon who are imagining that they may soon be returning to the land of Judah, Ezekiel is stressing the point, “You think this is exile? You haven’t seen anything yet!”

He emphasizes in particular the suffering destined for Zedekiah, the King of Judah. Ezekiel’s walking with covered face (“that you may not see the land”) is an eerie prophecy of the day when the Babylonians would gouge out the eyes of Zedekiah, so that the execution of his sons would be the last thing he saw in this world before going into exile (2 Kings 25:4-7; Jeremiah 39:4-7; 52:7-11).

In verse 17 the prophet begins yet another pantomime, this one much simpler, and in verses 21-28 Ezekiel is charged to challenge two more cynical slogans popular at the time. These slogans, concerned with apparently unfulfilled prophecies, will lead into his condemnation of false prophets in the next chapter.

Monday, April 21

Ezekiel 13: This chapter contains an oracle against the false prophets (13:2-16) and an oracle against false prophetesses (verses 17-23). The major problem with all such folk is that they “prophesy out of their own minds” and “follow their own spirit” and “divined a lie.” Thus, grave spiritual harm befalls those who listen to their fantasies and follow their counsels.

Even though a wall is just about to fall, says Ezekiel, they daub it with whitewash to make it look new and secure. Well, the whole thing is about to come down, he warns, in spite of the false hopes raised by false prophets.

In his oracle against the false prophetesses, Ezekiel speaks of wristbands and head-bands (if these things are, indeed, what these rare Hebrew words mean), evidently the paraphernalia of their rituals and incantations. We should probably think of these women as fortune-tellers, the sort of charlatans that are still among us. The prophet’s point here is this sort of thing is not harmless; foolish individuals, who probably need sound counsel for important decisions, really do pay heed to such imposters, rather often to the harm of their souls. God will thwart the designs of these deceivers, says Ezekiel, by showing their predictions to be false.

Tuesday, April 22

Ezekiel 14: In verses 1-11, the elders who came to consult Ezekiel got more than they anticipated, because the prophet was given insight into the deeper idolatry of their hearts. These men were apparently looking for some prediction about the future, only to be told that God’s prophetic word is not truly available for the unrepentant. That is to say, the prophet’s task was not to satisfy human curiosity about future events, but to call sinners to the due consideration of their souls. To borrow a concise expression from Saint Augustine, the prophet’s task is often that of prescribing, not predicting: praecipientis videlicet, non praedicentis modo—The City of God15.7).

Thus, instead of responding to their query about the future, Ezekiel summons these men to look inside themselves, at the idolatry in their hearts, before it is too late.

The second oracle in this chapter (verses 12-23) insists that the whole society, if it is unfaithful to God, will be punished as a whole. The Lord will not spare any society simply for the sake of a few just men in it, even if these latter include the likes of Noah, Daniel, and Job. While the just individuals themselves will be respected, this will have no affect on the lot of the whole, because God is fair and will render to each man according to his deserts.

Before God’s throne of judgment, therefore, it will not matter “who you know.” This thesis, which will be repeated throughout the Book of Ezekiel, is identical to that in the Book of Jeremiah (for instance, 15:1-4), and is a great deal tougher than we find, for instance, in Genesis 18, where it appears that the presence of five just men would have spared the destruction of Sodom.

Wednesday, April 23

Ezekiel 15: This parable of the vine wood is more reflective than ecstatic, more analytical and rational than poetic, disclosing the studious, logical aspect of Ezekiel’s thought.

And the message of this parable could hardly be more straightforward or less complicated: Vines and their stocks are of no constructive use unless they are still in the process of growing grapes. Once they have stopped doing that, they are useless for any constructive purpose. Unlike other kinds of wood, the vine wood cannot be used to fashion homes or furniture or even basic tools. Indeed, one cannot employ such wood to make an instrument so elementary as a wall peg on which to hang a pot in the kitchen. (The partial burn damage in verse 5 alludes to the partial exile of Jerusalem’s citizens in 597, some five years earlier.)

However, the parable proceeds to say, this wood can still be burned! No matter how otherwise useless, it still makes decent fuel. So, says the Lord, let Jerusalem take heed, because He has not seen any fruit on that vine for many a year.

The motif of this parable should put one in mind of Jesus’ cursing of the barren fig tree in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Both Ezekiel’s parable and Jesus’ parabolic action had to do with impending destructions of Jerusalem.

Inasmuch as Jerusalem is also a mystic symbol of the soul, the moral sense of this parable is applicable to us all on a daily basis. It is the other side of the Gospel injunction that we are to live lives that bear fruit; otherwise we are useless to God for any constructive purpose.

Thursday, April 24

Ezekiel 16: This parable is more elaborate than the one in the previous chapter, showing more evidence of allegorical detail. Both parables convey roughly the same message. Each parable is an illustration of failure. A beautiful but egregiously unfaithful wife is as useless as a cut and dried vine.

Several of the various details in this account of the harlot refer to specific periods and events in Israel’s history: the origins of the people, the time of the Covenant, the founding of the united kingdom and the prosperity of the Solomonic era, and the division into two kingdoms.

The oracle’s final part prepares the listeners for Jerusalem’s impending doom, which is to be like the earlier total destructions of Sodom and Samaria. Jerusalem, says the Lord, is more evil than either of these.

At the very end, however—after Jerusalem has fallen—appears a message of hope and renewal. Even the prophets most pessimistic about Jerusalem at this time, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, never cease to trust in God’s ultimate mercy. In particular, God will not hold children responsible for the sins of their parents, a theme to be elaborated in Chapter 18.

Friday, April 25

Ezekiel 17: This allegorical riddle is concerned with the geopolitical maneuvering dominant in the royal court at Jerusalem during the period between 597 and 586 B.C.

The first eagle in the riddle is the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (604-562); the second is Pharaoh Psammetichus II of Egypt (595-589). Sitting at either end of the Fertile Crescent, both Babylon and Egypt sought to make their military, economic, and political power felt throughout the region, and each of these two great centers had its friends and confederates within the Jerusalem court.

The removed branch in the allegory is King Jehoiakin of Judah, deposed from his throne in 597 and transported to Babylon. The new seed in the allegory is King Zedekiah, who replaced Jehoiakin and served as a vassal of Babylon. Because of the many machinations in his court, Zedekiah’s foreign policy was marked by vacillation and instability. Unable to maintain his covenant with God, he was likewise unable to maintain his vassal covenant with Babylon. The one infidelity led to the other (verses 11-19).

Even though he was thriving under Babylonian suzerainty, the allegory goes on to say, Zedekiah endeavored to forsake his political obligations to the political authority at the western end of the Fertile Crescent, and began to cultivate friendship with the eastern end, Egypt. Now he must pay for it. His sin consisted in seeking a purely political solution for a mainly spiritual and moral problem.

This oracle ends, nonetheless, on a note of future hope for the house of David, a hope that the Christian knows is fulfilled in great David’s greater Son.

Friday, April 11

Ezekiel 3: The point of eating the scroll was that the prophet should internalize God’s message, assimilating it into his own being, so that he could speak God’s word as his own (cf. Revelation 10:8-11). It remains one of the great images of prophetic inspiration: “All my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart.”

Thus, we believe that the teaching of the Pentateuch is not simply the word of God, but also the word of Moses. We contend that God spoke to Moses through divine inspiration, a Spirit-breathed process that included the thinking and imaginative powers of . . . Moses. Biblical Inspiration means that God’s word was filtered through—digested by—fermented in—the mind and heart of a human author.

Revelation comes to us, accordingly, through the inner anguish of Jeremiah, the soaring minds of John and Isaiah, the probing questions of Job and Habakkuk, the near despair of Qoheleth, the structured poetry of David, the disappointments of Jonah, the struggles of Nehemiah, the mystic raptures of Ezekiel, the slow, patient scholarship of Ezra, the careful narrative style of Mark, the historical investigations of Luke, and that pounding mill, the ponderous thinking of Paul.

God’s Word finds expression in inspired literature, because it first assumed flesh in human thought and imagination. This truth is indicated in that vision where Ezekiel sees God’s word on a scroll that he must eat. That is to say, God’s word always comes to us in a fermented, pre-digested form.

This great vision is then followed by seven days of reflection (verses 15-16), at the end of which Ezekiel is made aware of his new vocation as a watchman for God’s people. Whether they heed him or not, the watchman has a divinely commissioned responsibility to give proper waning. This theme will return in Chapter 33.

Saturday, April 12

Ezekiel 4: Here begins a sequence of symbolic actions that Ezekiel is commanded to perform, as though in pantomime, to serve as efficacious signs to his brethren in the Captivity. These actions function as prophecies too, prophecies conveyed in sign language as it were. These prophetic actions have their counterparts elsewhere in Holy Scripture, such as the symbolic names that Hosea and Isaiah gave their children, and Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree.

The first of Ezekiel’s signs, a sort of symbolic enactment of the siege of Jerusalem, involves the prophet playing like a child with building blocks, placing the various pieces into an elaborate scene, accompanied by a narrative. Children do this kind of game all the time. A solitary child, indeed, may spend hours at it, telling himself the story as he moves the little pieces around.

The second action, more abstract, symbolizes the punishment of Israel and Judah, the former destroyed in 722 and the latter to be destroyed in the near future.

The prophet’s third action portrays the suffering of the siege about to come upon Jerusalem. Most significant to this prophetic priest is the ritual uncleanness that must accompany the preparation of the food and the circumstances of the people’s defeat. In the few words that Ezekiel himself speaks in this chapter, we observe the intense emotional pain felt by the prophet in the enactment of these symbolic gestures.

Sunday, April 13

Ezekiel 5: This chapter begins with the fourth symbolic action imposed on Ezekiel, which signifies the various fates awaiting the citizens of Jerusalem as the siege nears its end. It is clear that only a tiny remnant of them will survive. The rest of the chapter is a stirring oracle explaining why so severe a judgment is falling on Jerusalem. It will be so grievous, the Lord says, because He expected so much more of the city that He had chosen as His dwelling place on earth.

Ezekiel, as a priest charged to minister in the temple, was deeply acquainted with the sacred worship that made Jerusalem so special. This elect place of God’s presence and His proper worship have been particularly defiled by the idolatry of the populace (5:11). Whereas Jeremiah (7:1-15) had already warned the people of Jerusalem that they would not be saved by their mere possession of the temple, Ezekiel now instructs them that this possession will render their punishment all the more severe. God expects more from the one to whom He has given more, but the chosen Jerusalem has offended Him even worse than the nations that He did not choose.

Monday, April 14

Ezekiel 6: The prophet, standing in Babylon, faces westward, the direction of Israel, to pronounce this oracle of doom. The threefold destruction predicted here (sword, famine, and pestilence) stands parallel to the three portions of Ezekiel’s shaved hair and beard in the previous chapter, as does the prophecy of a remnant that will be delivered.

Whereas Jerusalem was being addressed in Chapter 5, the present chapter pertains rather to the rural areas of Israel, the hills and valleys. The immediate listeners to this oracle, however, are those Israelites who have already been brought to captivity in Babylon. It is they who must take warning, for they will soon see God’s judgment on idolatry.

Idolatry—the worship of whatever is not the true God—is the root sin against which all the Lord’s interventions in history are directed. Since idolatry always involves human bondage, the Lord’s interventions are directed to deliverance from bondage. The Exodus itself set Israel free from the gods of Egypt.

Idolatry is the sin that is about to bring about the destruction of Judah, says Ezekiel, as well as Israel not so long before; idolatry is the reason that the masses of their population were carried into exile. Indeed, idolatry is itself a form of exile, an alienation from the true God.

Tuesday, April 15

Ezekiel 7: If the Bible likens good to a seed that grows, develops, and matures, the same is likewise true of evil. Like the enemy that Jesus described as sowing tares among the wheat, Ezekiel says that is Israel is about to behold the blossoming and fruit of many years of evil sowing.

The scene of the coming judgment portrayed in this chapter is marked by the same cataclysmic finality that characterizes Jesus’ own predictions of the fall of Jerusalem. The “land” of Israel cursed in this chapter is to be understood in a geographical, not just a political, sense. That is, the very earth is cursed, like the cursing of the ground in Genesis 3. Drawn from the earth himself, man pollutes that source by his accumulated sins. God’s patience is immense. But because it is related to times and seasons, it is not infinite. The end has come, says Ezekiel. When God is “fed up,” there is nothing in this earth that can prevail against His judgment.

Wednesday, April 16

Ezekiel 8: This startling, detailed, and dramatic vision of Ezekiel occurred on September 17, 592 B.C. He is carried “in the Spirit” to Jerusalem to witness the abominations for which the city was to be punished with the wrath and the inevitability that we observed in the previous chapter. The material of this vision will occupy Ezekiel through Chapter 11, at the end of which he will be returned to Babylon. Prior to Jerusalem’s downfall in 586 many of the prophets fellow exiles in Babylon maintained the hope of returning home soon. The purpose of this and other visions of Ezekiel was to destroy such a hope by showing it to be groundless.

In this vision there are four scenes, each illustrating a discrete abomination in the temple. The first scene is at the north gate of the wall that separated the outer court of the temple from the outside world (8:3-6). (Ignore and omit the word “inner” from verse 3, in accord with the more accurate Greek text of the Septuagint. The received Hebrew text of this chapter is notoriously corrupt.) Ezekiel finds a pagan shrine in this place, an affront to the Lord’s presence in the temple.

In the second scene (8:7-13) he goes through the wall of a chamber adjacent to the gate, where he finds Israel’s elders worshipping images of animals.

In the third scene (8:14f) he crosses the outer court toward the temple’s inner court. Not yet entering the latter, Ezekiel beholds Israelite women crying for the death of Tammuz, a Mesopotamian god of vegetation. Even this alien cult is found in God’s temple.

Finally, in the fourth scene (8:16-18), Ezekiel enters the inner court, where he discovers sun-worshippers. Israel’s idolatry is complete. These men have turned their backs to God and are giving adoration to a creature.

Thursday, April 17

Ezekiel 9: The marking of the foreheads of the Remnant is a sort of renewal of the marking of the houses of the Chosen People in Egypt on Passover night.

Those thus marked will be spared on the day of wrath, for the simple reason that they “sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem.” Sometimes the just man is left so powerless in this world that all he can do, in the face of overwhelming evil, is “sigh and groan.”

Not only does the temple offer no sanctuary from the punishment; those in the temple are the first to fall, because they have defiled God’s house. The divine judgment begins, then, not with the world, but with the household of God.

The seven heavenly figures — the scribe and the six executioners — are angelic figures representing God’s just will in what is about to transpire in Jerusalem. Revelation 7 is a very good text to read with this chapter, which is surely in part its literary inspiration.

Friday, April 18

Ezekiel 10: The wooden statues of the Cherubim, with their wings spread over the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, were but symbols of the angels of the Presence, the heavenly Cherubim who serve to support the Throne of God.

Now Ezekiel sees these heavenly spirits themselves, and they are identical with the Four Living Creatures that he had beheld in his inaugural vision in Chapter 1, where they bore, as here, the Cloud of the divine Presence. They will appear again, of course, in Revelation 4.

The burning coals from within their whirling wheels, full of the divine holiness, are destructive of those whose brows have not been marked by the angelic scribe, who also appears again in this chapter.

Besides destroying the wicked, this divine fire purifies God’s loyal servants (cf. Isaiah 6:6f). As the chapter closes, the action moves to the east gate of the temple, facing the Mount of Olives. It is at this gate that Ezekiel will receive the two oracles in Chapter 11.

Friday, April 4

The Resurrection and Anthropology: A common complaint against the proclamation of our Lord’s Resurrection is the claim that this story is only a variant of the ancient fertility myths about dying and rising gods. According to this objection, the risen Christ is just a Galilean version of Osiris, as it were.

It is convenient to this argument, of course, that both Jesus and Osiris rose again in the spring, and their celebrations make endless references to vernal themes like renewal and rebirth; they are reasonably regarded, therefore, as variations of a common and nearly universal motif. Of course, usually those that make this point also mean to imply that Jesus is to be taken no more seriously than Osiris.

This argument is very far off the mark. In fact, the Paschal Mystery is not about the death and resurrection of a god. The Church proclaims the Resurrection of Jesus as the Resurrection of a dead man. According to the Christian faith, it is as a human being that Jesus was raised from the dead. He arose in His humanity, just as He died in His humanity. It is a human being, then, who is transformed and glorified by victory over death.

Consequently, the first time the world heard the proclamation of the Resurrection, no mention was made of the pre-existing divinity of the One who rose. St. Peter did not say, "Well, He was God, after all, and there was no way to keep Him down." On the contrary, he proclaimed, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ"(Acts 2:36).

With respect to the dying and rising of pagan divinities no one ever announced, "of which we are all witnesses" (2:32). Strictly speaking, no one ever testified to the death and rising of some historical character named Osiris, and no one was ever invited to believe in Osiris. And it is very certain that no one ever laid down his life for preaching about Osiris.

In contrast, the Resurrection of Jesus was proclaimed as an historical fact, which involved a real man, a person recently deceased, someone whom everyone knew to have died. "This Jesus" was the One who rose.

The difference between these two cases is important, not only as a point of apologetics, but also as a concern of theology. In the man Jesus the human race commenced its journey through death to life. In the "faith of Jesus Christ" (Romans 3:22,26), "the author and finisher of faith," humanity passed from the power of death to eternal life. It was this Jesus "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).

As "forerunner" (prodromos), Jesus became our high priest and mediator (6:20; 9:15; 12:24). Opening the way for us, He was the first to pass through every stage of human existence and experience, including the stage of death resultant from the fall of Adam, and to attain mankind’s new and definitive stage, the Resurrection.  Rising from the dead He became the true and efficacious Head of the human race.

This doctrine is what Christian theology calls humanity’s anakephalaiosis, or "re-Heading" (in Latin, recapitulatio). This term means that God’s eternal Son, who became man, took unto Himself the fallen race of men, in order to re-create all humanity through His own humanity. Jesus Christ did this by passing through every stage of human experience and development–the First to do so–restoring to union with God what had perished in Adam.

An early expression of this theology comes from St. Irenaeus, a second century bishop of Lyons, who wrote of God’s Word, "when He became incarnate and was made man, He re-headed in Himself (in Seipso recapitulavit) the long line of human beings, providing us with salvation in a brief, comprehensive manner, so that what we had lost in Adam we might recover in Christ Jesus–that is, our being in the image and likeness of God" (Against the Heresies 3.18.1).

In His assumption of our humanity, God’s Word took to Himself, not only our nature, but also that personal experience of history which is proper to human beings. He sanctified our personal histories by gaining a human, first-hand, personal familiarity with life and death, adding thereto the utterly new experience of eternal life gaining victory over death. His Resurrection was of the essence of man’s redemption, His consecration of human experience from within.

Saturday, April 5

The Resurrection, History, and Psychology: Our reflections on the anthropology of the Resurrection would be incomplete without some attention to history and psychology, because these two subjects are integral to our understanding of what it means to be a human being.

First, then, what does the Resurrection of Christ mean to human history? In truth it begins an entirely new and defining phase of history, because it introduces into human experience, for the first time, a transcendent and utterly certain foundation for hope. It is an absolute novum quid.

With God’s vindication of Jesus of Nazareth, there was posited into history, through the preaching of the Apostles, an entirely new thesis with respect to human destiny. For those that put themselves under the sway of the Gospel, history could no longer be "more of the same," or "business as usual,” because the Resurrection of Christ conferred on history something it had never known before–a metaphysical telos, a goal, a directing and energizing purpose deliberately placed into the process itself.

Since that first Christian Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ has worked as yeast in the dough of the human enterprise, energizing that history toward its final shape. Those who confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God has raised Him from the dead stand most literally “on the side of history.”

For this reason the Orthodox Church celebrates Pascha by beginning to read the first book of Christian history, the Acts of the Apostles, and all through the Paschal season regular readings from this book replace the normal reading from the New Testament epistles during the Divine Liturgy. This Book of Acts records the first thirty years or so of mankind’s new history, Church History. We appropriately commence our reading of it in the liturgical context of the Resurrection, because it enunciates to the world the novum quid.

Throughout the history of the Church the Resurrection of Christ is the perennial source of power and renewal. This is the reason the Church has survived its worst enemies and always will. All of Christian history thus becomes a revelation and extension of the Resurrection. Christians live and thrive on the compound interest of the Paschal Mystery, a limitless font of joy, strength, perseverance, and victory in the face of the myriad demonic forces raised against them.

Second, the proclamation of the Resurrection of Christ is the announcement of true human psychology, this term being understood in its ancient and etymological sense as "the study of the soul."

Classical philosophy, regarding the human soul as the permanent and essential part of a man, did not understand its relationship with the human body, which is manifestly impermanent. There were various theories on this subject, but scarcely any philosopher regarded the soul as "incomplete" without the body. Some, in fact, thought of the union of body and soul as an aberration, a fall from the soul’s proper spiritual state. Many even regarded the soul and body as mutual enemies, and those who, like Plato, believed in the soul’s native immortality, were not disposed to think its departure from the body as much to be mourned. Such was the argument that Socrates elaborated for Phaedo and his friends as he prepared to drink the hemlock.

The doctrine of the Resurrection, which posits the reunion of soul and body as man’s permanent and proper state, stands as an affront to theories of this sort. It is no wonder that the Athenians and others treated this doctrine with derision and as a species of madness (Acts 17:32; 26:23-24; 1 Corinthians 15:12). They laughed, because pagan philosophy was overly taxed by the preaching of the Resurrection; with outside help, wrote St. Bonaventure, "our reason cannot conceive such things as the resurrection of bodies." Consequently, those pagan philosophers "were unaware that the world had an end and that bodies would rise from their dust" (In Hexaemeron 7.6).

Apart from the Resurrection, that is to say, philosophy rather deeply misunderstood the very nature of the soul, thinking of it as a separate and independent entity, maintaining its essential being apart from the body. This was a serious aberration characteristic of all classical philosophy. According to the Christian faith and hope, in contrast, the final perfection of man will include the reunion of his soul and body, and the soul itself will remain incomplete, even in heaven, until that reunion at the final resurrection.

In the thirteenth century, when much of the Scholastic movement tried to treat philosophy as an autonomous source of wisdom–a scientia separata–independent of divine revelation, St. Bonaventure appealed to the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection as part of his ongoing critique of that effort. Without the Gospel of the Resurrection, he argued, philosophy was unable even to understand the human soul. "Assured eternity,” he wrote, “is incompatible with the possibility of loss, and it is certain that perfect peace is possible only in the reunion of body and soul. If, then, the soul is essentially disposed toward the body, the soul is fully at peace only after the body has been returned to it" (7.5). For this reason, heaven itself will be incomplete until the resurrection of the dead, the completion of history, and the restoration of man’s psychological integrity.

Sunday, April 6

The Forty Days of Lingering: During the forty days following His Resurrection, Jesus acts very differently than He did before. During this period when, says St. Luke, "He presented Himself alive . . . by many infallible proofs," Jesus seems to be only half with us. He appears in one place, then appears somewhere else, but He does not seem to travel from the one location to the next. He comes on a scene without warning, passing mysteriously through doors, and then making it a point to demonstrate the solidity of His flesh and bones. Then, just as abruptly, He takes His leave, we know not how. Jesus’ behavior–if the word be allowed–during this time is strange, unpredictable, and certainly inconsistent with normal expectations.

Just as He passes through the closed door of the upper room, our Lord seems also, without actually rending it, to make repeated openings into time. The various post-Resurrection stories, which are notoriously difficult to reconcile as parts of sequential history, indicate that Jesus’ new existence does not display what we normally think of as sequence. It is as though His life is set free from the limitations of time and space. Indeed, we believe this to be the truth. 

The unpredictable absence and presence of the risen Jesus during this time convey the impression that He is living partly in eternity, partly in time, half in heaven, and half among mortals. It is as though He is hesitant to take His physical leave of history, and we believe this too to be the truth.

In fact He prolongs His stay on this earth so that the Church may be further strengthened. For forty days He fortifies in His believers the sense that He is gone but is still with them. In sundry ways He acquaints them with a new mode of His presence.

During this time He appears repeatedly to speak of things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3).  Certainly in His earlier days on earth Jesus discoursed on this very subject times out of mind, but now the teaching of the kingdom is contoured and nuanced by the new condition of the Teacher. In some sense the kingdom itself is different now; at least it is experienced differently, as the risen Lord delicately accustoms His Church to a new way of His being with them.

Sweet indeed are these forty days, and unique beyond any period in the history of world. Jesus of Nazareth has died, has descended into hell and triumphed over death by coming forth from the tomb, but He has not yet taken leave of history. He prolongs His sojourn among those that love Him. These days are not only tender and loving, but also exciting.

Indeed, there is something about this time that one dares to describe as jocose. Is there not something exceeding playful, for instance, in our Lord’s incognito appearance to Mary Magdalene, just before revealing Himself in a single word? Again, still playing the stranger, He walks some seven miles with two disciples, using the grammatical third person to question them about His own death, lecturing them at length on the Holy Scriptures, and then finally disappearing at the moment they recognize Him in the breaking of the bread.

If we look for a term to describe such conduct, the words "hide and seek" may come to mind, and this is the name of a game. Is He not in some sense playing with us? There is a delicate touch of frolic in all this, a quiet celebration among these friends of the Victor over sin and death.

Thus, there is an element of mirth and teasing in the Lord’s invitation to skeptical Thomas to inspect the wounds of the Passion, and irony is perhaps the word that best describes the way our Lord presses Simon Peter three times at the lakeside: "Do you love Me?"

Just what is our Lord about during this time? He is putting the final touches on His Church. And I use the word "touches" on purpose. Touching us here is what He does. He employs this brief period to impress an immediate and final shape on the memory and imagination of His people. Yes, touch is the word we want.

Indeed, when the Gospel was preached not long afterwards, the preaching was shaped by the events of these forty days (Acts 2:32). When, decades later, the Gospels were written, they were composed in the warm light shed quietly upon the Church during this time. The Church would never be able to look back at the life of Jesus except through the post-Resurrection lens. Indeed, the very attempt would be irreverent, like analyzing the physics of a kiss. (This is the reason why, by the way, there is a radical frustration built into later attempts to find "the historical Jesus." The Church rightly reacts against such efforts. These forty days were an essential component, even a defining part, of that history!)

The Lord’s final act is to raise His hands in blessing, as He ascends into heaven, after which we faithful return to the upper room for a prayerful retreat to assimilate intp our hearts the mystery so recently, so gently too, and so deftly revealed.

How long will it last? We have no idea. "When" is none of the Church’s business. It is not for us to know the times or seasons that the Father has put in His own authority (Acts 1:7). Concerns about God’s schedule are a great distraction and open to terrible deceptions.

And this is perhaps the most important lesson that we learn during these forty days of His mysterious lingering with us. He will do what He will do, and He will pick the time and place of doing it. Until the end of the world our task, according to the earliest page of the New Testament, is simply "to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

Monday, April 7

John the Theologian: Almost from the beginning of Christian history attentive readers of Holy Scripture have referred to the author of the Fourth Gospel as “John the Theologian,” thereby testifying to the special theological depth that seemed to set him apart among the evangelists. Only in recent times, however, have biblical students been disposed to analyze, critically and systematically, those distinctive features that render John so unique, and to arrange those features into a synthetic picture.

We may contrast their treatment of John, in this respect, with their treatment of Paul. Even as Christians referred to John as the “Theologian,” it was the theology of Paul that they critically and systematically analyzed and arranged into a synthetic whole. There seem to be three reasons for this anomaly.

First, it is a fact that the New Testament contains more information about Paul than about John. The Acts of the Apostles in particular provides a biographical outline, of sorts, for the Apostle to the Gentiles, an outline that gives the careful student a measure of critical and analytical control in the study of the Pauline epistles. (This was true for centuries. In more recent times, alas, these students have been largely controlled by non-biblical presuppositions that often prompted them to doubt the very authorship of various epistles of St. Paul.)

Thus, it is possible to detect a personal development in Paul’s theology. Under the influence of the Acts of the Apostles, a synthetic reading of Paul’s thought takes on something of a biographical character, which links his theology more closely to his person. Such an approach to Paul is discernable as far back as St. John Chrysostom.

This kind of approach is far more difficult in the case of John. Except for a few extra-biblical references, there is no historical way to control the study of John’s writings. Among the works traditionally ascribed to John, only the Book of Revelation actually claims to have been written by him (if it is the same John!). For this reason we do not have a clear picture of John, such as we have for Paul, so that we are somewhat deprived of a personal center around which to focus our study of Johannine thought.

This consideration leads immediately to a second reason why a synthetic study of John is so difficult. Readers of the Johannine corpus have often differed very much among themselves about which of the various Johannine writings should rightly be ascribed to John. To say the least, this situation makes it very difficult to form a synthesis of "Johannine theology."

There is a third reason why a systematic, synthetic analysis of Johannine theology has been relatively slow in coming: Unlike Paul, who dominates the epistolary section of the New Testament, the Gospel of John, which is the major component of the Johannine corpus, is simply one of four gospels. Hence the study of John has tended to be just a subsection of a more ample category, namely, “Gospel studies,” in which category John was compared and contrasted with the Synoptic Gospels. While it was always recognized that John is special among the four gospels, it was always a case of “among.” There was no consistent pattern of isolating John’s theology itself as distinctive, because the study of John was normally part of a larger picture.

Of these three impediments to a Johannine theology, the most difficult is surely the second—the determination of limits of the Johannine canon. How can we arrive at a synthesis of Johannine thought if we are uncertain about which books John really did write?

The problem in John’s canon usually has to do with the Book of Revelation. If this book is set aside from the Johannine corpus, however, the final product of Johannine study will be more abstract, less historical, because it will be missing the prophetic, apocalyptic dimension supplied by that book. We shall certainly end up with a different John if we eliminate the Book of Revelation, very much as those who deny the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles end up with a different Paul.

How then should one proceed? I believe that the only viable presupposition on which to base a systematic study of John is the prior acceptance of Johannine authorship, at least broadly understood, for all the writings traditionally ascribed to him–to wit, the Fourth Gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelation. This hypothesis is not attractive to those who find it difficult to imagine that a single author was responsible for works that differ so much among themselves with respect to genre and style. I confess to a lack of sympathy for their failure of imagination.

I believe that the full synthesis of John’s theology requires the study of three different literary forms, each with its separate characteristics: meditative narrative, epistle, and apocalyptic vision. This combination is true of no other New Testament writer.

It is also my persuasion that the acceptance of this authorial hypothesis is amply justified by the resultant fruits of such a study.

Tuesday, April 8

Psalm 28 (Greek and Latin 27): Holy Church has long interpreted this psalm in reference to the Lord’s Resurrection. Some lines of it tend to make that association inevitable: “My helper and protector is the Lord; in Him my heart hoped, and I was helped. And my flesh took life again, so I shall praise Him with ready will.”

This revival of the very flesh of Christ was not a simple return to a life in the flesh, for the risen body of our Lord is saturated with the transforming energies of the Holy Spirit. It is a spiritual and heavenly body, not in the sense of being immaterial, but in the sense that its material composition is itself completely filled with, and inwardly transformed by, God’s definitive outpouring of the divine life. The risen flesh of Christ is thus the first fruits of the new creation, the root and initial installment of that universal transformation by which God will make things new.

The Apostle Paul wrote of this sacred mystery of the Resurrection during the paschal season of the year 55. He was addressing the church at Corinth sometime during the fifty-day interval between Pascha and Pentecost, and, even as he wrote, he referred to the extended paschal season that the Christians were observing: “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor. 5:7, 8). He wrote these words from Ephesus, where he was planning to stay until Pentecost, which would come presently (16:8).

Writing during that paschal season, St. Paul used the occasion to expound on the meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus, particularly with respect to the new quality of the risen body. The resurrection of the dead, he insisted, is not a simple return to the corruptible life of the body that all men know. It is something marvelously different, analogous to the transformation that takes place when the sown seed rises to new life in the growing plant: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body (soma physikon), and there is a spiritual body (pneumatikon)” (15:42–44).

The spiritual body of the Resurrection is not some kind of “shade.” Jesus is no ghost. “Handle Me and see,” says the risen Christ, “for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). The risen body is still a body, which is to say that it is still composed of matter. To say that the risen body is spiritual does not mean that it is immaterial, but that it is incorruptible. Indeed, in order to emphasize the point that His risen body is still a reality composed of matter, the Lord insisted on actually eating a honeycomb and a piece of fish in the presence of the Church (24:42, 43).

Therefore, the contrast involved here is not one of matter and immateriality, but of two different states of matter: matter subject to corruption, or matter suffused with the Spirit-given dynamism of immortality–matter that is subject to death and corruption, or matter that can never again die.

Our corruptible bodies were descended from Adam; our new bodies are derived from Christ: “And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. . . . The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Cor. 15:45–49).

Such is the divine mystery celebrated in our psalm. The resurrection of the Lord (“my flesh took life again”) is contrasted with the lot who simply go down unto death: “O my God, be not silent to me, for if you are silent to me, I shall be like unto those that descend unto Hades.”

Our psalm also teaches that the life of the Resurrection is a life of divine praise. Indeed, the Church’s praise of God is rooted in the Resurrection of Christ: “The Lord is the strength of His people, and the protector of His anointed one’s salvation.”

(From P. H. Reardon, Christ in the Psalms

Wednesday, April 9

The Prophecy of Ezekiel: Among those exiles who in sorrow hung their harps on the willows beside the waters of Babylon was a priest named Ezekiel, whose book of prophecy we begin today. Ezekiel, in fact, arrived early in Mesopotamia (Greek for “in the midst of the rivers”), part of the group of hostages that Nebuchadrezzar took from Jerusalem in 598, by way of discouraging rebellion and political agitation in the Jewish capital (2 Kings 24:10-17). Not everyone that made that arduous journey survived it, but Ezekiel was still young and strong. We will find him still writing until about 571.

Ezekiel was one of those exiles that were settled by the Chebar Canal, one of the many man-made waterways included in what the Psalmist called “the waters of Babylon.” We are not sure what occupied Ezekiel’s time during the first five years, but in 593 he was given a special revelation from God, who therewith called him to be a prophet (Ezekiel 1:1-2). He wrote what he saw, and he precisely recorded the date of the vision, as he would do for all subsequent revelations. His habit of dating his visions conferred on Ezekiel the distinction of being considered the world’s first religious diarist. 

Interspersed with these revelatory visions are Ezekiel’s own reflections on their significance. While the former are described with intense passion and color, showing the prophet as a visionary, the latter are calm and reflective, showing the prophet to be a critical thinker of great depth. These are the two sides of this very complex man who was called to enlighten that entire generation of Jews in Captivity.

Ezekiel’s interest in chronological precision is of a piece with what we may call an autobiographical perspective in his prophecy. This perspective is somewhat new among the prophets, but one suspects it is related to Baruch’s biographical interest in Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s earlier contemporary. There had been prophetic biography before, of course, as we see in the 9th century stories of Elijah and Elisha. There had also been elements of the autobiographical, as seen in the “vocation narratives” of Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. In Ezekiel, however, the entire perspective is explicitly autobiographical.

And this process of autobiography tends to render Ezekiel’s perspective more “objective” than Jeremiah’s, in the sense of being less emotional. We find in him even a disposition toward abstraction, in which his habit of leisured reflection is able to scan broad vistas in a unified vision. Thus, we do not find in Ezekiel the highly emotion, deeply troubled soul of Jeremiah. Hence, the biographical elements of Ezekiel differ considerably from those in Jeremiah. He is able to stand back and look at his message in a calm, reflective way. He has enough “detachment” even from his ecstatic visions that he can take care to record their dates!

Ezekiel’s perspective is also visionary. Hitherto there have been visionary elements in the prophets. One thinks of Elijah, Isaiah, and Amos. Ezekiel is the first, however, whose entire prophetic ministry is essentially tied to visionary experiences. Subsequent prophets, such as Daniel, Zechariah, and St. John the Divine would share this characteristic.

Like most of the prophets, Ezekiel suffered, though suffering is not so noticeably a component of his spiritual growth, as was the case with Jeremiah. The year 587 was arguably Ezekiel’s hardest year. That was the year Jerusalem was destroyed and Ezekiel’s wife died.

Ezekiel was clearly a well-educated man, arguably one of the most educated of the biblical authors. His knowledge of the world around him, his familiarity with “current events” as well as ancient history, his vast store of information on trade, travel, and political alliances put him on a par with such cosmopolitan writers as Herodotus and Polybius.

Ezekiel was also a priest, and perhaps this is the key to understanding him. In his youth he had ministered in the Temple. This explains his deep sympathy for priestly interests. Unlike Jeremiah, who was also of a priestly family, Ezekiel’s thought is dominated by the Temple, and in the descriptions of his visions there is recourse to the imagery of the Temple liturgy. Finally, the closing chapters of  his prophecy are taken up with visions of the New Temple.

Chapter 1 describes Ezekiel’s call to be a prophet. In the second half of summer Ezekiel received his inaugural call by the banks of the Kabari Canal, a man-made waterway that flowed out of the Euphrates, through the city of Babylon, and then back to its mother river. This “fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiakin” is calculated to be the period between April 30 of the year 593 and April 18, of the year 592. The “fifth day of the fourth month” of this year was August 4, 593. This was the date of Ezekiel’s calling.

Like the inaugural callings of Moses (Exodus 3:1-4) and Isaiah (6:1-6), the calling of Ezekiel is glorious and visionary. Above the “four living creatures,” who support the vault of heaven, he sees “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” God’s glory, because it fills all of heaven and earth, can be revealed anywhere, whether in a burning bush in the Sinai Peninsula, or in the temple at Jerusalem, or, as now, by the banks of a waterway in Babylonia.

Thursday, April 10

Ezekiel 2: After his inaugural vision in Chapter 1, Ezekiel now formally receives his call in Chapter 2. The Spirit (in Hebrew Ruach), of which Ezekiel spoke in 1:4 (where the same Hebrew word is usually translated as “Wind”), now enters into him, causing him to stand up. This is the same Ruach that will enliven the dry bones in Chapter 37.

It will be another six years before Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the exiles, to whom he is sent to preach, are rebellious. Ezekiel is exhorted not to be impressed by them, nor necessarily to expect positive fruits from his preaching. In terms very reminiscent of the calls of Moses and Jeremiah, Ezekiel is instructed to continue preaching to his contemporaries, no matter how they receive his word. It is God’s word, after all, that he will speak.

Toward the end of this chapter he will be handed a scroll of God’s word, which he is instructed to eat. This is one of several places in Holy Scripture where God’s Word is likened to food.

This image also indicates the prophet is to assimilate God’s Word and to preach it from within the digestive processes of his own mind and heart. It is always the word of man as well as the Word of God. According to Christian theology God speaks to man through the inner creative workings of his mind and heart. In that inspiration by which God caused the Holy Scriptures to be written, man himself was a co-worker with God, a synergos. God’s word is likewise, then, the word of some human being who is properly called an "author."

Friday, April 11

Ezekiel 3: The point of eating the scroll was that the prophet should internalize God’s message, assimilating it into his own being, so that he could speak God’s word as his own (cf. Revelation 10:8-11). It remains one of the great images of prophetic inspiration: “All my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart.”

Thus, we believe that the teaching of the Pentateuch is not simply the word of God, but also the word of Moses. We contend that God spoke to Moses through divine inspiration, a Spirit-breathed process that included the thinking and imaginative powers of . . . Moses. Biblical Inspiration means that God’s word was filtered through—digested by—fermented in—the mind and heart of a human author.

Revelation comes to us, accordingly, through the inner anguish of Jeremiah, the soaring minds of John and Isaiah, the probing questions of Job and Habakkuk, the near despair of Qoheleth, the structured poetry of David, the disappointments of Jonah, the struggles of Nehemiah, the mystic raptures of Ezekiel, the slow, patient scholarship of Ezra, the careful narrative style of Mark, the historical investigations of Luke, and that pounding mill, the ponderous thinking of Paul.

God’s Word finds expression in inspired literature, because it first assumed flesh in human thought and imagination.  This truth is indicated in that vision where Ezekiel sees God’s word on a scroll that he must eat. That is to say, God’s word always comes to us in a fermented, pre-digested form.

This great vision is then followed by seven days of reflection (verses 15-16), at the end of which Ezekiel is made aware of his new vocation as a watchman for God’s people. Whether they heed him or not, the watchman has a divinely commissioned responsibility to give proper warning. This theme will return in Chapter 33.