The Scroll That Tasted Like Honey

Ezekiel was still lying face down on the muddy bank of the river Kebar, with the rainbow-wrapped throne blazing above him, when the voice began to speak.

"Son of man, stand up on your feet, and I will speak to you."

God's Spirit came into him and set him on his feet, the way a father lifts a child who has tumbled over. ("Son of man" was God's name for Ezekiel. It means a human being, a plain person made of dust, standing before the God of heaven.)

"I am sending you to the people of Israel," God said. "They have turned against me, and their hearts are hard. Whether they listen or refuse to listen, they will know that a prophet has been among them. Do not be afraid of them, even if they are thorns and briers all around you, even if you are sitting on scorpions."

(A scorpion makes a very poor cushion. God did not pretend this job would be comfortable.)

Then a hand reached out, holding a scroll. In those days a book was a long strip of leather or reed paper, rolled up like a sleeping bag. The hand spread it open, and it was written on the front and on the back, all of it sad: words of crying and mourning and trouble coming.

"Son of man," God said, "open your mouth and eat what I give you. Eat this scroll, and then go and speak."

Ezekiel opened his mouth, and God fed him the scroll. They were sad words, and yet in his mouth they were as sweet as honey.

They were God's words, and God's words are good, even the ones that warn and grieve.

"Israel will not listen to you," God went on, "because they will not listen to me. They are hard-headed and hard-hearted. So I have made your forehead harder than theirs, harder than flint."

(The people had hard heads. God gave Ezekiel a harder one.)

Then the Spirit carried Ezekiel to the exiles at a town called Tel-abib, and for seven days he sat among them, too stunned to speak.

After seven days God spoke again. "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from me, warn them."

A watchman stood on the city wall all night, ready to blow his horn the moment he saw an enemy coming. If Ezekiel kept silent and a wicked man was never warned, that man would die in his wrongdoing, and God would hold Ezekiel responsible. If he heard it and would not turn, he would die, but Ezekiel had done his job. And whoever listened and turned back would live.

Ezekiel kept watch for more than twenty years. Many never listened, and Ezekiel could not make a stony heart soft. A watchman can shout a warning, but he cannot take the danger away.

Hundreds of years went by.

Then another Son of Man walked the roads of Israel. He called himself that more than any other name. Ezekiel had eaten God's words once. This man lived on them. "My food," he said, "is to do what my Father sent me to do." Then he did what no watchman had ever done: he went out to meet the danger himself, and he died on a cross, so that everyone who turns back to God can live. On the third day he rose again.

His name was Jesus. "Lord," his friend Peter told him, "you have the words of eternal life."