Hello hello friends. Today we continue our march through the book of Ezekiel, it's still a little weird, but certainly more grounded than yesterday. I see some connections to the author of the book of lamentations with some of the not so lovely imagery used in that book as well. Because of the nature of the exile being a giant rant from God about people and their sin I thought it would be best to include a video from Bible Project today about "bad words of the Bible: sin" to help give some explanation about what exactly is sin, what does it look like, how does it exist today and what is God's relationship to it. That can be found below in the "Questions to Consider" section. For now, let's take a deep breath in and ask God to be revealed to us in the text as we read together.
Scripture to Read
Audio Bible
Questions to Consider
What does this teach me about God?
What does this teach me about humanity?
When I imagine the word "sin", what comes to mind?
As mentioned above I want to use this space to offer better words and insights than I could provide from our friends from Bible Project. They have a short series called "Bad Words of the Bible" that we'll be playing for the next 3 or so days. The first "episode" is on sin. While it might be a judging sounding word the video is super informative.
Prayer
Our prayer today is inspired by hymn 187 in our United Methodist Hymnal - Rise, Shine, You People. Talk about a motivating hymn name to seize the day!
Rise, shine, you people! Christ the Lord has entered our human story; God in him is centered. He comes to us, by death and sin surrounded, with grace unbounded.
2 See how he sends the pow'rs of evil reeling; he brings us freedom, light and life and healing. All men and women, who by guilt are driven, now are forgiven.
3 Come, celebrate; your banners high unfurling, your songs and prayers against the darkness hurling. To all the world go out and tell the story of Jesus' glory.
4 Tell how the Father sent the Son to save us. Tell of the Son, who life and freedom gave us. Tell how the Spirit calls from ev'ry nation God's new creation.