Ezekiel 11:16-21
The Source of Love

Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: Though I removed them far away among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while in the countries where they have gone. Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. When they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, says the Lord GOD.

New Revised Standard Version

This passage from Ezekiel comes during a vision God gives Ezekiel of the sin of the Israelite people and the coming consequences of that sin. As the prophets foretold, the nations of Israel and Judah would be conquered and the people sent into exile because of their rejection of God. Ezekiel is dismayed at this vision, and cries out to God in despair for the future of his people.

In this scripture, God answers Ezekiel's cry with several assurances of God's love, assurances that can comfort us today as much as they comforted Ezekiel. Notice first the promise that God is a sanctuary to the people, even at the worst of times, even when they are being punished for their unfaithfulness, and even when they do not deserve it. God's Love never gives up! We can never be in desperate circumstances where God is not with us. God's comforting presence does not depend on us earning that privilege, and God will be near us even when we have done our sinful best to reject God.

God's Love promised to restore the people from exile back to the Promised Land, and we read in the Old Testament where God did just that. God did more than restore land ownership and a government, though. God also gave the people a new heart of love, replacing their heart of stone. God promised to equip the people with everything they needed to love God. One modern song writer captures the same idea when he sings that the breath we use to praise God is itself a gift from God. We know that Grace works by taking our feeblest acceptance of God's forgiveness and multiplying it by God's power to make us new and complete. It is that same Grace God promised through Ezekiel that would allow the people to love God.

But there is a "catch." We can reject God's Love, and God will let us do that. We can choose to ignore God's presence with us in our troubles and pretend we can solve our problems ourselves. We can choose to reject God's Grace because we are too proud to believe that God could forgive what we have done. We can twist and distort the heart of love God gives us to lust after what is wrong until we turn that heart back into stone. We have the power to unmake what the Creator of all things has made.

That, too, in an eternally significant way, is a sign of God's Love. God doesn't allow rivers to run up hill. God keeps the stars orbiting in their galaxies instead of colliding in an intergalactic game of marbles. God keeps our hearts pumping and our lungs breathing, but God allows us to reject, distort, and even ignore God's Love in us.

Why would we do that to God? Why, when God has loved us so much and when God has given us everything we need to love God in return, would we turn away from that Love? Why would we not rejoice in the presence of God instead of wither when we cut ourselves off from God? I don't know the answer to these questions, nor do I know why I continue to slip into sin and fail God. "Wretched man that I am!" wrote Paul. "Who will rescue me? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

There is more to our choice than the appeal of logic and of love. We have every reason to love God, and we have every opportunity to love God. But if we choose not to love God in response to the Love God has given us, we will ultimately have to live with the consequences of that choice. "I will bring their deeds down upon their heads," promises God, for the whole point of having a choice is that the outcome of the choice is different. Just because we don't see the consequences of our choices immediately doesn't mean there aren't consequences. God's Love is infinite, but we are limited, temporal, and frail, so we have a limited number of opportunities in our lives to choose to embrace and live out God's Love, or choose to reject God's Love.

Because God loves us so much, because God has designed us and equipped us to love, because it matters whether we choose to accept God's Love or not--live in Love!