My dear family, carissima famiglia.
If we listened, that was a really yucky first reading [from Ezekiel]. It was not nice at all. Anyone that says Christian faith is nice better think again. Here is Ezekiel having a vision about what went on when Jerusalem was destroyed. Remember, Ezekiel is in exile, he’s with the people of God who have been taken from their land and he’s now living in the captivity in Babylon. And he has a vision of the razing of Jerusalem … and he saw why this happened, why the temple was destroyed, and why there was butchery of “little children, old men, young men, and young women” All except the ones the Lord had “marked” to be taken away, all who were to not to be killed but exiled. And Ezekiel’s understanding, and that’s what we hear reflected in his vision, is that this punishment clearly was the work of God. So, God willed that these people be killed. How is this possible?
This is his understanding because, of course, he did not know the Lord Jesus and the fullness of God’s revelation. Ezekiel lived amidst the unfolding understanding of the power and majesty of God revealed to the People of Israel in their time and with their concepts. He sees in the vision of the cherubim and the cherubim carrying the throne of God in power and glory on the wheels of heaven.
“the glory of the God of Israel was up above them. Then the cherubim lifted their wings, and the wheels went along with them, while up above them was the glory of the God of Israel” (Ez. 9:21-22)
He sees how real and mighty God is, that the destruction of Jerusalem was not the demonstration of the powerlessness of God, of Yahweh, before the gods those who conquered him. But rather that God was above all of this, that His glory and power was that of the Only God. Ezekiel’s only way of understanding Jerusalem’s destruction was to say, ‘this is God punishing us’. Of course, the better understanding would be to see that this is the consequence of not following the Lord … whose sovereign power allows the results of our choices to unfold.
But in the fullness of the Revelation of God in Christ Jesus we know what God’s action really is. God responds to this butchery brought on by our infidelity by becoming one with those who are butchered. By becoming one with those who do the butchering. By becoming one with all broken people on the Cross. That’s how God really responds. And in Christ Jesus you and I have been given to see this. It is not the will of God that bad things happen. Destruction has been introduced into the world by those who have said, ‘not your will, but my will be done’. In the Holy Spirit of Jesus, we are those who pray, “Thy will be done.” And his will is to walk with us. His will is to strengthen us. His will is that in Jesus going into death, death would no longer have the final word. Heaven and victory and resurrection – these are the final words.
So too Christians who go through such horrors today, for Ezekiel’s vision of sufferings could be a description of Gaza underneath the Israeli bombs. This could be a description of the depredations in Ukraine. This could be a description of Sudan. This could be a description of … fill in the blank. Those who suffer but who suffer knowing victory and heaven are theirs are those who know Jesus. The rest are left… to interpret things in their own way. They interpret suffering with anger. They start ascribing to God all the things that are wrong. ‘It’s your fault. It’s your fault’, they cry …because they do not know Jesus. They do not know the Cross. And they do not know the power of the Cross to bring healing.
That is why you and I must proclaim the gospel. Because if people do not know Jesus, then the horrors of this world will be hell. But if they know the Lord Jesus, then the sufferings of this world will be seen in the light of the victory of God that will not leave us passive, but will give us energy of holiness for justice.
Brothers and sisters, you and I who know Jesus, in this very time of celebrating Holy Mass do not just have Ezekiel’s vision of God in eternal glory. We have God who showed Himself above the cherubim, right now enthrone Himself in us through Holy Communion. This is glory. This is victory. This is God. Let us enter into the sacred mysteries of the Cross so that we might rejoice in the power of the resurrection.
Let us be holy. Let us be saints.