Ezekiel 1.1 (NIV)
In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
Ezekiel 1.22-28
Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked something like a vault, sparkling like crystal, and awesome. Under the vault their wings were stretched out one toward the other, and each had two wings covering its body. When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army. When they stood still, they lowered their wings.
Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Richard Dawkins
All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation.
Ezekiel’s introduction, “In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God,” immediately invites us into his amazing, awe-filled world.
Probably the son of a Judean priest, Ezekiel and the rest of the Jewish elite were exiled to Babylon around 587 BCE. Nebuchadnezzar’s armies destroyed Jerusalem, including the Temple. As you might imagine, this caused tremendous emotional and spiritual tumult for both the exiles and the people left behind in the shell of once-mighty Jerusalem.
Remember, Jews considered Jerusalem the spiritual center of the cosmos, the heart and soul of God’s reality, the throne of all thrones. Its destruction was akin to the entire universe collapsing into a black hole, taking every ounce of faith with it.
Amid the chaos and ruin, Ezekiel had one of the most powerful cosmic visions ever recorded.
His startling experience with the fiery, sensory-overloading presence of God motivated him to tell the Jews in diaspora that even though displaced, and their Temple destroyed, God was still powerfully with them.
Ezekiel’s awe-filled vision reminds us to stay hopeful while we’re in exile today.
We need to take a cue from Ezekiel because we are in exile now. Forced by an unwavering enemy to retreat into a contactless world, we wait in our boxes, watching more boxes on the rectangular screens that now define our boxed-in lives. Under circumstances like this it can be easy to miss the presence of God, much less have an Ezekiel-like experience that knocks us breathlessly to our knees.
In fact, in light of not just COVID-19, but also a confluence of global racial, political and economic disasters, it’s understandable if our faith is wavering. Like Ezekiel and his people, we are banished in a new Babylon. To survive what may be a long exile, and to adjust to an already much different world, we need to listen to Ezekiel and rediscover our awe and wonder for God in a world bent on separating us—from both God and each other.
Thousands of years after the Babylonian exile, empires still wants to crush us and turn us into slaves. While empires like Rome’s certainly do inspire awe, with their massive public works projects and buildings designed to intimidate, for most of us, empire is soul-crushing.
And the only thing in the universe powerful enough to abolish soul-crushers is God, whose authentically awe-filling nature brings us to our knees in thanks and absolute amazement.
Ezekiel was amazed by fire and gold and a throne of precious gems, reflective of his people’s ideas about God in that era. For Ezekiel, God liberates through fire, an incredibly deep symbol of cleansing and rejuvenation for the ancient Jewish people. Remember, God appears to Moses as a burning bush, and to the Jewish people (and others) as a pillar of fire.
Centuries later, Jesus reveals and teaches something new about this fiery God, this awesome universal force that brought Ezekiel to his knees. Jesus says, God is not only “out there” on a lapis lazuli throne, noisily belching fire like a modern spaceship, but also, miuch more quietly, with us—within us, always, wherever we are, whether in the desert experiencing a massive vision, or quarantined in our houses, alone with our thoughts, yet never alone with God.
Jesus teaches us that God is the very substance and fabric of the universe, a force of love, infinite and vast, yet also intimate and warm. God is part and parcel of everything, from the mountains to the prairies, to the young and old, every human, every atom, now and forever.
If Ezekiel and Jesus had access to modern science, I think they would be astounded by our ability to peer deeply into the structure of matter and out past the furthest reaches of our galaxy, to the edges of the universe. Learning about the nature of nature has led many of us beyond intellectual understanding to real experiences with God. Science helps us understand what the great prophets always intuited: God is all.
In the 21st Century, many of us experience God in deep, personally profound ways. Pictures of the vastness of space and the knowledge of atomic molecules would astound Ezekiel and Jesus, as they do us. Think about how many images of space look like fiery thrones, or the hand and face of God. Would not these images bring Ezekiel to his knees? Shouldn’t they do the same to us?
To survive exile, our ancestors adapted to a new environment but retained their deep faith. We must follow their example and also disconnect from noisy Babylon. Intentionally find the spaces where God comes to us, if not in a fiery, noisy rocket like Ezekiel’s, then in a dream, a laugh, a note from a friend, a call from a loved one, a glance at a mountain, a harvest moon.
Because the truth is that God doesn’t come to us only in special places, God is with us everywhere. Awe is easy when we’re high up in the mountains, surrounded by God’s monumental glory in every tree and pebble, rock and stream. It is more difficult—and more important—for us to experience God kissing our cheeks on crisp everyday winds, filling us with endless vistas of sunlight (even if it’s reflected off parking lot puddles), at stoplights, in bad drivers, in cashiers, cooks, accountants and butchers, preachers and politicians, people like you and me, all so intensely beautiful, that our awareness borders on surreal and shatters our souls from the complacency of exile in Babylon.
Just like it shattered Ezekiel’s.
All around us, nature witnesses to God’s breathtaking beauty, and I remain literally and figuratively on my knees in absolute awe of God’s glory.
Like many of you, I’m doing my best to stay connected in a disconnected world, by simply looking at trees and flowers and birds and stars and planets differently—not merely as trees and stars and planets, but as very real pieces of God’s beauty and grace; as reminders that God alone is my power, my inspiration, and my hope.
And I think that is awesome.
Amen.
Question: How are you discovering awe in exile?
