Ezekiel 48:35b “And the name of the city from that time on will be: the Lord is there.”
If there is one thing I know, we all gain our identities from an outside source. Our careers, our family, our past experiences all become tags that we use to explain and define who we are. I am a retired Army Chaplain, Marriage and Family Therapist, Father of two, grandfather of seven. You get the idea!
This is a natural thing to do. It both separates us from others with our differences and connects us to a different group because of the similarities. I am a Army Chaplain (like other Army Chaplains) making me different from most. But I am at the same time a Christian connecting me to hundreds of millions of others.
One thing that makes the book of Ezekiel sing is the repeated phrase “then they will know that I am the LORD.” This exact phrase occurs 26 times in this book. And there several very similar phrases to this which echo the same message, that the LORD is present and active.
So why is that important. Remember, Ezekiel was written after judgment had been brought on the nation of Israel. They had been thrown into exile for their rebellion. So the people would naturally feel like they had been rejected, that the LORD “had left the house.”
And the nations watching this judgment transpire would also conclude that the LORD wasn’t with Israel, or that He lacked the power to protect them. They would see their defeat and remember the boastings Israel had made, boastings that puffed Israel up and put them down.
So now at the conclusion of the book Ezekiel is given a picture of a reconstructed Israel and a reconstructed Temple. And the one characteristic that is emphasized as the final message of the whole book is that “the LORD is there.” Despite all the rebellion, the LORD would once again dwell with His people.
And where is this perfect city where the Eternal God will dwell? Somewhere here on this dustball! It will be a renewed dustball, but a dustball none the less. From the beginning the LORD had a plan to share rule and reign with humanity here in this place.
And what a wonderful place it will be. This picture in Ezekiel’s final chapter gives the same picture of this joint dwelling place as that in the first and last chapters of the Bible. That’s right! The beginning and end of the story is of a garden where the LORD and humanity dwell together.
When people look at your life do they define you by the presence of the LORD evident in the way you live and the way you treat others? Is He the One who writes your identity on the hearts of others?
The Arnold Journey 