Imagine

Ezekiel 40-41

Here we go! I thought we were past the “boring” parts of the Bible. Yesterday we read about God obliterating a mighty leader and his allies and today we get dimensions for a temple? Two whole chapters on dimensions and part of another(we’ll get to that tomorrow)? Give me a break…

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems we are living in one of the least imaginative periods in world history. If you asked me to write a simple short, short story, like under 1000 words, I don’t know if I could think up something that would hold your interest for 10 minutes. I don’t know if it would be because of my lack of imagination or yours (maybe both). This is why we find passages like today’s so boring. And I think I know why our imaginations are so lacking. It is because of the constant bombardment of visual stimulation. We don’t need to exercise our imaginations, so we don’t. We have blockbuster films so we don’t need novels. Kids have IPhones so they don’t need to play made up games. Cars have DVD (or Blu-ray) players so they don’t have to exercise their vocabulary (which takes imagination) to play the Alphabet game. I don’t want to sound like some old fart harping on modern technology, but anyone who thinks smartphone usage among the adolescent (and younger and older) doesn’t carry consequences is being naive at best. Maybe I’m delusional, but at least that means I have imagination, right?

Now on to these “boring” dimensions…

In our key verse for today (40:4) Ezekiel receives instructions to look, listen, and pay attention to what is being said and then to tell it to the people of Israel. This signals for us that even the most minute measurements of this passage are seen as important to the people of Israel. It makes sense that these small details would matter; anyone who has done carpentry knows that even an eighth of an inch can make a big difference when trying to make something square (flush). And that’s the case even if you make something as small as a birdhouse. How much more so when you’re creating a compound as big as the temple being described. If this temple is actually going to be built, it needs detailed specifications. No one builds anything on a grand scale without a blueprint about how to build it. So it makes sense that the builders of this temple would need to know this “boring” stuff. But why does all of Israel need to know what this temple will look like? The answer to this question reveals in part why Ezekiel was told to tell all of Israel the vision and part of what we should glean from the passage. God wanted Israel to be able to imagine what the temple would look like. They could make a mental picture in their minds and imagine being there with Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel . This would have filled the righteous with joy, hope, and a longing for the future and the idolatrous with guilt, fear, and hopefully a desire to repent. It would have revealed God’s holiness to them and made them think about their guilt (we’ll talk about this more tomorrow). There’s no doubt in my mind the Jews in exile had better imaginations than us.

Now to us unimaginative folks…

Just as God wanted to have the people of Israel use their minds to picture the temple and imagine what it would be like to be there, our creator wants us to use our imaginations. We are to love Yahweh with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. I think this last one gets under appreciated or is used simply to refer to knowing about God, but part of loving God with our mind is using our inherent ability to imagine. Today’s passage is a great opportunity to do so. As you’re reading (or, listening) to Ezekiel 40 and 41 and the dimensions listed (read a version with measurements you’re familiar with) picture the temple in your mind and what it would be like to be there with God. There are other parts of the Bible with much less detail, but where we can still picture the scene in our mind. This should help us in our study of scripture and fulfilling the command to love God with all our mind. We can imagine what it was like at creation, what it was like to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, or what it will be like in the Kingdom. These are not only great exercises for our lacking imaginations, but I believe they are ways to worship. We are made in the image of the one who created the entire universe out of nothing. Imagine that-

Joel Fletcher

Today’s Bible reading passage can be read or listened to at BibleGateway here – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+40-41&version=NIV

Tomorrow we will read Ezekiel 42-43 as we continue on our