September 8 - Ezekiel 28-30: Fresh Hope

Ezekiel speaks three chapters worth of prophecy against Tyre (26-28) and then four against Egypt (29-32).  Serious and real judgment against these nations.  God was clearly displeased and had definite plans to destroy the evil and to "set things right and reveal [His] holy presence" (28:21).

And then I'll stir up fresh hope in Israel - the dawn of deliverance! (29:21)

Fresh hope.  How do you have fresh hope in the midst of unrelenting circumstances?  When your cancer may be back?  When you care for a special needs child or someone with mental illness?  When the cloud of depression won't seem to lift?  When you watch your grown child make bad decisions and reap the consequences?  When the pile of debt never lessens?  When you're single and there are no prospects?  When you're childless and you've experienced one more miscarriage?  When you can see no way out?

"But Ezekiel saw.  He saw what the people with whom he lived, either couldn't or wouldn't see.  He saw in wild and unforgettable images, elaborated in exuberant detail - God at work in a catastrophic era....yes, there was catastrophe, but God was at work in the catastrophe, sovereignly using the catastrophe....

"He showed them that God was and would be at work in the wreckage and rubble, sovereignly using the disaster to create a new people of God."  (Eugene Peterson, Intro. to Ezekiel)

From our vantage point in history, we can see it, too.  We can read what God later did to create this new people through his Son who came out of Egypt and visited Tyre - the former places of judgment.

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord  appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, 'Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring you word....that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, 'Out of Egypt I called My Son.' (Matthew 2:13-15)

Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David!   My daughter is severely demon-possessed....' But He answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.'  And she said, 'True, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.'  Then Jesus answered and said to her, 'O woman, great is your faith!  Let it be to you as you desire.'  (Matthew 15:21-28)

Father, thank You for the fresh hope that you give me as I read these stories.  Thank You for always being at work in the midst of catastrophe, sovereignly making a "new creation" and "making all things new" (2 Cor. 5:13).