Sweet as Honey: God's word in our lives
August 13, 2024 - Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 2:8—3:4
After the vision of God's glory, Ezekiel shares with us a symbolic action that commissions him to his prophetic ministry. The biblical author is convinced of the power of words that spring from our thoughts and lead to action. The first word spoken on the pages of the Bible was: "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3). The Gospel of John begins with a well-known sentence, "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1), and then the author says: "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3).
The words of the biblical prophets also carry a lot of weight. Elijah could shut the heavens for three and a half years and no rain fell upon the land of Israel. Jeremiah's words aimed "to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" (Jer. 1:10). And Isaiah could prophesy about Jesus' incarnation and Christ's saving passion. But before those words could be uttered, something significant had to happen to the prophets.
When God called Moses and Jeremiah, both said that they could not speak, and upon seeing the vision of God, Isaiah cried that he was a man of unclean lips. Moses was told that God would teach him what to speak (Exodus 4:12), "one of the seraphim" touched Isaiah's lips with "a burning coal" (Isaiah 6:6), and the hand of the Lord touched Jeremiah's mouth (Jer. 1:9). Today, Ezekiel is given by a mysterious hand an entire scroll to eat (Ezekiel 3:1). The symbolic significance of this action is clear: the prophet needs to internalize God's message before he can utter it.
At this moment in history, an entire collection of different scrolls—from Genesis to Revelation—is given to us by the Church. This collection contains stories, commandments, prophecies, visions, and letters. The entire collection is like a mosaic that unveils God's plan of salvation. Are we familiar with this book? Have we internalized its message? Ezekiel said that the scroll was "as sweet as honey" (Ezekiel 3:3). I know people who wake up early in the morning to read the Bible. There are those who take their Bible wherever they go and read it on the bus, train, or plane. When asked which one book they would take with them to a desert island, many answered: the Bible.
In places where the Bible is not available or forbidden, Christians cherish it more than gold. They try to memorize it, copy it by hand, and hide it from authorities. Those who found themselves imprisoned for the sake of Christ suddenly realized that the Bible lives within them. In solitude, they can recall huge chunks of biblical texts and pray with psalms which they memorized while still being free.
Let me end this short reflection with two quotes from the Fathers of the Church that capture the message of today's reading from Ezekiel. The first comes from Saint Augustine and says: "The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home." The second one comes from Saint John Chrysostom and says: "The Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts." Now, the scroll is before your face: take it, internalize its message, and proclaim it to the world.