Day 309

Ezekiel 7:1-9:11, Hebrews 6:13-7:10, Psalm 119:161-168

One of the first things that caught my attention with the Ezekiel passage was the death and destruction, the difficulty that we feel when we read about people dying and God being involved is always there. When we concentrate on it though we miss some very important things.

In this instance it was a vision that God gave to Ezekiel rather than a report of what happened, and the death was in response to a lot of injustice and the fact that people did not care about the injustice. We can now read this in light of the cross and the gift of grace that came in Christ. We know that God is not going to wipe us out in a Noah level flood, but ….

But the injustice is still there and Good cannot be happy. Just because we know that he will not kill us all, does not mean that we have a licence to ignore the problem. Just before the death part, God called what was probably an angel to go through the people and place a mark on those who were grieving over what they saw. They would live. Would you have the mark on your forehead? Do you grieve?

I struggle with this, I know that there are times when I have ignored the homeless person, turned the TV news off because it was too depressing or skipped an article in the newspaper because it was hard reading. I have failed to pray for all these people and failed to grieve for them.

On our street corners and on street corners that we will never see, in living rooms next door and in living rooms on the other side of the world, people dwell in a place of poverty and pain, injustice and inhumanity, and we are called to grieve, to pray and lift them to God.

Will you bear the mark of one who loves, grieves and cares. Will you bear the mark of the one who loves, grieves and cares – Christ our Lord.