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21. Even In Darkness, Not Forgotten


Ezekiel 34:20-31
Key Verse: "I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and He will tend them; He will tend them and be their shepherd."
Ezekiel 34:23

Ezekiel speaks to encourage a discouraged remnant of Israel as they live out their exile in Babylon.  It is hard to feel like the blessed, chosen people of God right now.  They are far from their Promised Land.  Their king, the representative of the line of David is gone.  They are a miserable people.  All has been lost.  One of their Psalms from the period goes like this. 

"By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. 
There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us
For songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said,
"sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the Lord While in a foreign land?
Psalm 137:1-4 (a Psalm from the exiles in Babylon)

How easily could you sing praise songs to the Lord in prison; in a concentration camp? That is what the people were being asked to do here by their captors.  They were being asked to sing, not to witness to their captors, not so that their captors could join in.  They were being asked to sing songs of joy so that their captors could make fun of them as they did so.  That is what the faithful remnant faced as they tried to understand why their loving God was allowing all of this to take place. 

In this chapter of Ezekiel, we see that God continues to blame the priests, "the bad shepherds," (Ezekiel 34:2-5) for much of the reason that the people are continuing to suffer as they are.  God, however, the good shepherd, through Ezekiel, assures the people again that he has not forgotten or abandoned those in exile.  He gives them something to look forward to.  Another David will arise to be the good shepherd.  He will judge fairly between the sheep, or chosen people, and they will live in safety and harmony in a good place.  No harm will come to them and they will not know fear any more.  Jeremiah's messages were for the people still in Jerusalem who had no hope.  Ezekiel gives a similar message to the remnant who must have also been feeling abandoned by God.  How could the exiles be the fortunate ones? Yet, God assures them that they are!

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were contemporaries.  They lived hundreds of miles apart.  There was no phone or fax or texting possible, yet God made sure that both were on message.  God looks forward to a new covenant of peace between Himself, the good shepherd, and we, the sheep of His pasture.  He is still working toward the fulfillment of His plan.  According to God, we are still on target even though it doesn't seem like it to those here below. 

Hymn: The King of Love My Shepherd Is

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