Psalm 87, 90; Ezek. 3:4-17; Heb. 5:7-14; Luke 9:37-50
Ezekiel is commissioned and sent and he goes among the exiles at the place of their dwelling and, like the friends of Job, sits among them for seven days. It is important that he identify with the people and their difficult situation before beginning to speak. He cannot be an outsider simply come to lecture them, he must be among them as one of them first. That is the first principle of incarnational ministry. We aren’t sent to a people without understanding them, their culture, their pain and their joys, we must inhabit their world before we speak to a people. Ezekiel knows that his prophecy will magnify the pain of these exiles when the Lord, even in exile, speaks a word against them. He, like all of us, wants to give words of comfort but that is not the message he was given. In order to make Ezekiel fit for the task the Lord had to make him hard-headed, as hard-headed as those to whom he would prophesy. It must have been his nature to be more sensitive to criticism and to delivering difficult messages so the Lord gave him what he needed to carry out the mission. Ezekiel waited until the Lord gave the word before speaking.
Jesus is doing incredible things including this remarkable healing of the boy with an unclean spirit. The reaction of the crowd is that they were astonished at the majesty of God. Does that mean that they knew that this was something only God could do and that in this work they saw God? At this high point in His ministry Jesus then tells the disciples that the end is drawing near and the disciples break into a ridiculous argument about who is the greatest. To review, three of them had just been on the mount of Transfiguration and the other nine hadn’t been able to heal this boy that Jesus could. What difference does it make which of them was the greatest? We do the same thing in comparing ourselves or pastors, we forget that in light of Jesus comparisons are silly. Jesus redefines greatness for them by telling them that humbling yourself is the path to true, kingdom greatness.
What does it mean to say that Jesus “learned obedience”? He certainly didn’t have to learn obedience because He had some history of disobedience. I once had a boss who thought because he read a manual for our new software system at a bank where I worked that he knew the system and in fact set himself up to teach it to others as our department was the beta testing unit to work out the bugs in the software. The package was generic and then was customized for us and the manual didn’t have the customizations to it and when he taught others to use the system it was readily apparent to me and my co-worker that he didn’t know the system at all and we were forced to regularly correct him during his teaching. There is a learning that takes place when we do something that is different from knowing in theory. Jesus had never been in a situation where disobedience was possible in the same way it is here so it is apt to say that He learned obedience. What is required for us to learn obedience, change from disobedience?
Let every kindred, every tribe,
On this terrestrial ball,
On this terrestrial ball,
To Him all majesty ascribe,
O that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall,
We at His feet may fall!
We'll join the everlasting song,
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