The Word’s the Thing… Even if It Is Enacted

Ezekiel 3-5

            If you’re a more experienced Lutheran, and you remember the old red hymnal, there was a collect (a prayer) in the service without communion on page 5, in which we prayed that we might “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” God’s Word. In the blue hymnal they changed the last phrase to “take them to heart.” It gets at the same idea—thinking deeply about the Word—but I sure do like the evocative language of “inwardly digest.” That’s what Ezekiel is called to do; literally eat the scroll of God’s words and fill his stomach with it. For Ezekiel it’s tied to the scene at the end of chapter 3, in which he is bound with ropes and told to be silent until the Lord tells him to speak. As a prophet, Ezekiel is to center his entire ministry in the Lord’s words and to speak only those words. But for every Christian it reminds us that “God’s Word is our great heritage” (LSB,582).

            The rest of chapters 4 and 5 are occupied with enacted prophecies. In the first Ezekiel is to make a drawing of Jerusalem and then he is to lie there for over a year as sign of Israel’s ongoing sin. Next he turns on his other side for 40 days as a sign of the Lord’s impending judgment. Since the Lord give Ezekiel permission to bake and eat, he must not have laid there all day every day, but still, what a strange piece of “performance art”!

            In the second enactment, Ezekiel is to cut his hair and beard and apportion it for all sorts of reasons, expressing how Jerusalem will fall. Bear in mind that Ezekiel ministers to people already in exile, so there is a warning there that their particular exile will endure and they will be joined by many more from Israel.

            Now, if you ask me why Ezekiel has to do these very unusual things, I will give you an honest answer: “I don’t really know.” I suppose the graphic things he does really drive the message home.