Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Great and Holy Week Fast
Great and Holy Wednesday
6th Hour: Ezekiel 2:2-3:3 1st Vespers: Exodus 2:11-22 2nd Vespers: Job 2:1-10
Ezekiel 2:3-3:3 LXX, especially vs. 3:3: "And He said to me, 'Son of man, feed your belly,
and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.' So I ate it, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness." The
vision of Himself that the Lord revealed to Ezekiel in "the midst of the captivity," came five years after he and those with
him had been enslaved. Further, it came shortly before the final destruction of Jerusalem and would subject the rest of
God's People still in Judah variously to death, deportation, and bondage.
As the vision began (Ezek. 1:1-2:2), heavenly wonders and glory were revealed to the Prophet. Today's portion of the
theophany turns to the commissioning of the Prophet. Now the purpose of the vision becomes pointed: the Lord will send
Ezekiel to proclaim bitter truths to His chosen People. The task will be burdensome. God tells the Prophet that he will
meet resistance, just as the People have resisted the Lord already. Ezekiel can expect to encounter hard looks, fearsome
words, and even threats against his life (vs.2:6). As so often happens with hard truths, the messenger as well as his
message will face resolute opposition.
Beloved of the Lord, let us note, as the vision reveals Ezekiel's life work, he becomes a type of the Lord Jesus, his ministry
foreshadowing the Passion of Christ. As Ezekiel was born for a life of affliction, so also the Lord by His taking on our
flesh, assumed a ministry that ended in His Crucifixion and Death, but with the surprising final sweetness of Resurrection.
God calls Ezekiel, "Son of man" (vs. 2:3), a common Hebrew form of address which the Lord Jesus adopted to refer to
Himself (cf. Mt. 8:20, Mk. 14:41; Jn. 3:13). In Ezekiel's case, the infinite God uses this form of address to communicate
across the immeasurable gap between His Divine nature and the finite, created being of His servant, the Prophet Ezekiel.
The Lord Jesus' use of this term, as His preferred way of referring to Himself, precisely expresses His chosen
condescension to mankind and His unity with our nature.
Further, notice God's words commissioning the Prophet: "I send thee forth to the house of Israel" (vs.2:3). How often the
Lord would remind those to whom He spoke that He was sent from His Father (cf. Mt. 10:40; Mk. 12:6; Lk. 4:18; Jn.
5:23). Further, Ezekiel's life beautifully foreshadowed St. Paul's description of Christ: born into the dignity of the
Priesthood, events "humbled" the man, made of him one of "no reputation," reduced him to being a "slave," all of which
Ezekiel accepted and urged his fellow countrymen to accept (see Phil. 2:7-8).
Ezekiel was also a type of the Lord Jesus because when God called the Prophet to speak for Him, He directed him to
"speak My words" (vss. 4,7), to "hear" only the word of God - in the sense of "heed"or obey (vs. 8) - and above all to
digest the word of God inwardly (vs. 3:1). Observe how the Prophet Ezekiel prefigured the Lord Jesus, for Christ said, "I
can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous; because I do not seek My Own will but the
will of the Father Who sent Me." (Jn. 5:30).
Finally, the Prophet stands as a type of Christ because the message which God "spread before" him on the heavenly scroll
was filled, front and back, with "lamentations and mourning and woe" (vs. 10), yet Ezekiel willingly received it, and it was
sweet to him. In his servile existence in Babylon, the Prophet consistently obeyed God - even in facing death (vs. 2:6). In
this, the ear of faith hears Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, saying, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (Mt. 26:39). He takes on the Passion with the honey of Resurrection in
His mouth, for all who will follow Him.
O Compassionate Lord, I magnify Thy Passion, with Thy Resurrection: Glory to Thee!
