Ezekiel’s Prophetic Acts
Sometimes there's just too much blah blah. The news is full of blah blah. Work is all about some exciting new, strategic blah blah. Your phone and social media is just blah blah. And even church can seem blah blah. To cut through, we need more than words. We need something that grabs people's attention. Media agencies & marketeers try new ways to get our attention.
2,500 years ago, Prophet Ezekiel was all over it. Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah had all had a go. They used louder, more passionate, more finger-wagging blah blah. But no-one was listening: people, stick with God; if you go away from God, you’ll go away from His protection; you’re about to be attacked – you’ll lose everything; those who attacked you are coming back to kidnap you. They just heard blah, blah. Even whilst in Exile – held against their will as slaves in Babylon – still they just heard blah, blah.
Ezekiel knew, to cut through, he needed a different approach. So, he opted for performance art. Have you ever been captivated by a mime artist who, without using blah blah words, stopped you in your tracks? It’s easy to dismiss Ezekiel as being somewhere between a bit cookie and downright odd. Better to think of Ezekiel as being ahead if his time. After all, isn’t that what being a prophet is all about? Someone who helps people to see beyond the present, into the future. So, “This will be a sign to the people of Israel.” chapter 4 verse 3 If Ezekiel was cut through, he needed to dial up the Cookie Factor.
Act 1: eat the scroll Don’t just read the sacred Scriptures; EAT them. Let the words of God be precious food to you.
Act 2: Go into lockdown Stay home, don’t speak, you’ll be tied up with rope. Surely a prophet should be out, among the people, speaking blah blah? The message is that God doesn’t have anything more to say. He’s already said it, numerous times. But the people repeatedly failed to listen  
Act 3: Make a Lego City and then lay siege to it. Use toy soldiers to attack it. This is what has happened to you and Jerusalem, and will happen again and again – until you listen to God.
Act 4: Lie on your side for just over a year Lie in your side one day for every year Israel has been drifting from God. 390 years. For us, that’s the equivalent of since 1631. We might say the UK has been drifting from God for generations. This has not come from a single ‘lapse of judgment’ a ‘moment of madness’. Rather, it’s come as an accumulation of centuries of disobedience. Psalm 103:8 says: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” God is SLOW to anger & QUICK to bless. We’re too often the opposite.
And don’t think the more faithful ones have been perfect. For the last 40 days, turn on to your other side. Forty is a round number, reminiscent of Israel’s 40 years wandering in the wilderness, and Jesus’ 40 days of trial in the desert. Without saying a word, Ezekiel is pointing back to Moses but also forwards to Jesus. 
Oh, by the way, take all the sin of the people on yourself. Write all the sins on post-it notes and cover yourself with them. Normally, the sins were placed on a goat – the scape goat - which then carried them away into the desert, never to be seen again. But Ezekiel was taking them on HIMSELF, he – not a sacrificial lamb or the scape goat - was carrying their pain and suffering. 
Again, with no blah blah, Ezekiel was pointing people to Jesus, the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. For someone who didn’t speak, he was communicating volumes.
Act 5: Bake-off “Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times.” v.10 That’s about 230 grams or 8 ounces. A pitta bread weighs 50 grams and has 275 calories. So Ezekiel was making 5 pitta bread, giving him just 1,375 calories a day.  This was a significant weight-loss diet, famine rations. And drink just 0.6 litre of water a day. In that heat. “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt” v.9 Mix wheat and barley with whatever you can scavenge, leaves, grass seeds… Because famine is coming.
Oh, by the way, you know on Bake-Off that use fancy Neff ovens, Ezekiel, yours is a Naff oven. Electric? Gas? Well, err, no. Use your poo as fuel to cook with. You don’t need to know anything about any of the laws in Leviticus or Deuteronomy to know that that is vile. It’s unhygienic, smells rank, and will make the food taste disgusting. No handshake from Paul Hollywood for that bread. Burning cow dung was more normal. But God was warning the siege would be so long and terrible, all your cows would die. This was too far, even for Ezekiel. OK, so use cow poo instead.
And the reason for all this? “The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin.” v.16-17
It’s not that God has decided to punish the people. Famine will be the consequence of their greed and selfishness. 
Chapter5 verse 10 even says: “Parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents.” Again, God is NOT saying I don’t like what you are doing so I’m going to make you eat each other.  Rather, there are consequences to your actions and lifestyle. Things you think are unimaginably horrific happen when people take lots of gradual steps.  No-one starts of thinking it’s OK to commit murder or abuse a child. One action leads to another.
Act 6: Shave your hair off Hair was a sign of health, well-being, authority. Shaving the head was a sign of mourning or shame, even humiliation With no hairdressers available (we know all about that), use a sword. This would have been painful, leaving cuts to the head. Humiliated, blood coming from cuts to his head, a sword having pierced his skin, who does this remind you of? Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Jesus, who accepts our humiliation and shame, with bleeding head from the crown of thorns. Israel’s sin and shame, that Ezekiel was taking on himself, would now be born by substitionary scape goat Jesus for us all. Again, Prophet Ezekiel is pointing people to hope.
Shave your head and divide your hair into 3 parts: a third will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword. In other words, no one is going to escape.
Ezekiel wasn’t bringing judgement; he was bringing GRACE.  God wasn’t saying, because I don’t like what you did, I’m punishing you – and this is how. Instead, God was continue to pursue them with LOVE and compassion
God is pursuing you today. Do you need to wake up, come to your senses, and come back to God?
And if you have, how are you pointing people to Jesus? 
If your words have become just blah blah, be like Ezekiel, 

DannyBrierley@ChesterRoadBaptist.org.uk