Troubling Days

The Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel,  stood with the people of Israel in a troubling time.  The first few verses of this book of prophecy tell us that the Israelites were in captivity in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar.  A young priest who had been in training for work in the Temple of Jerusalem was with them.  All his adult life he had been preparing himself to be a priest.  Biblical scholarship enables us to know that in his thirtieth year, he was ready to step into a life of ministry as a priest in the Temple.

 

Instead, of his plans coming to fruition, Ezekiel finds himself in the land of exile with a the mantle of prophet thrust upon him.  The exiled people could no longer look to the Temple as a source of spiritual strength and guidance.  It was gone.  It lay in ruins in another land.  In this troubling time, they, like the young man Ezekiel were forced to find new ways to worship the God of their past and learned to understand that He was revealing Himself in different ways as well.

These are troubling days for us.  And one of the things which makes the trouble different is the way it separates us from the usual ways of gathering with the people of God in worship.  As churches are forced to close on Sunday morning, we find ourselves in a strange land separated from what has always been a source of spiritual comfort, spiritual strength, and spiritual guidance.  The way forward is compounded by the fact that those spiritual leaders who are seeking to stand with us have been trained for ministry within the walls of a church more institutional than spiritual.  What we will surely soon discover is what the people of Ezekiel's day found to be true.  God is with us and God will lead us forward.