The Watchman

A hand reaches out of a blazing vision, holding a scroll. Words are written on the front and the back. And a voice says: Son of man, eat this scroll. So he does. And it tastes like honey.

It is about five hundred and ninety-three years before Christ. Ezekiel is a young priest from Jerusalem. Five years earlier he was taken to Babylon with King Jehoiachin and thousands of others. Now he lives in a settlement called Tel-abib, beside the river Chebar, a great canal among the fields of Babylonia. He should have been serving in the temple by now. Instead he is an exile in a foreign land. And there, by the canal, the heavens open. Ezekiel sees a dazzling vision of the glory of God: living creatures, wheels full of eyes, a throne, and a figure like a man shining like fire. He falls on his face. And God speaks to him, and sends him to his own people.

The scroll is full of hard words: laments, mourning and woe. But God tells him, “Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.” Ezekiel opens his mouth, and God feeds him the scroll. Fill your stomach with it, God says. “Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.” It's a picture of what a prophet does. God's words don't just pass through him like a messenger reading a note. They go inside him and become part of him. And even a hard message from God is sweet to the one who receives it, because it is God's own word.

Then God tells Ezekiel the truth about the job. I am not sending you to a foreign nation with a strange language you can't understand. If I sent you to them, they would listen. But the people of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to me. They are stubborn and hard-hearted. So, God says, I have made your face as hard as theirs. Like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Don't be afraid of them. Then the Spirit lifts Ezekiel up, and behind him he hears a great rumbling sound, like an earthquake, and voices saying, blessed be the glory of the Lord. He goes back to the exiles at Tel-abib, his spirit hot and troubled. And for seven days he just sits among them, overwhelmed.

At the end of seven days, the word of the Lord comes again. “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.” A watchman stood on the city wall, scanning the horizon for danger. If he saw an enemy coming and blew the trumpet, he had done his job, even if no one listened. But if he stayed quiet, he was responsible. So it is with you, God tells Ezekiel. If I say to a wicked person, You will surely die, and you don't warn them, that person will die in their sin, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. But if you warn them and they refuse to turn back, they will die in their sin, and you will have saved your own life. And if you warn a good person not to slide into wrong, and they listen, they will live, and you will have saved yourself too. Ezekiel's job is not to make people listen. It is to be faithful.

Watchmen were a matter of life and death in Ezekiel's world. Around the same years, as Babylon attacked Judah, a military officer wrote a message on a piece of broken pottery to his commander at the city of Lachish. It was found by archaeologists in the nineteen thirties, among the Lachish Letters. The writer says they are watching for the fire signals of Lachish, because they can no longer see the signals of Azekah. Watchmen on the hills were looking for the warning fires.

You'll find this story in Ezekiel chapter three, verses one to twenty-one. A priest who ate a scroll sweet as honey, and was sent to warn his people faithfully. So here is a question to carry with you. Is there someone you care about who needs a kind, honest word from you?