Jan 15. - Empty House

From the First Lesson for this day, Ezekiel 10:1-19

I am alone while I write this. Karen is at her mother's and Alex is at a concert. Buddy is in the other room snoozing on the couch.

The house is otherwise empty. Yet, I'm comfortable. The familiar sounds of the fridge and the heat are all around. There is the nagging hum of the flourescent lights in the kitchen. I'm wrapped in a blanket a friend made me from yarn that was left after my Mom died, for some purpose Mom intended, completed for me as a reminder of her.

There is one thing. I have this legendary fear of the dark. When it comes time to go to bed, I'll be up and down the stairs at least twice, making sure there are lights on up before I turn them all off down.

It's not the empty house that scares me. It's the empty house without light that kindles my fear.

This may be the sense that Ezekiel had at the end of today's reading:
"Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house..."

What would it be like if the glory of God left my life? If the glory of God left the Church I serve? Why would God withdraw His glory? Is that even possible?

I don't know what I'd do if God would leave me. I've been close to Him for as long as I can remember. Even before I made a conscious decision to be a Christian in college, I've always felt Him to be close by. When I was a boy, it was as if God were a companion. In junior high and high school, when my parents' marriage fell apart, God seemed to be reliably stable. Ever since college, God has been a faithful companion.

I think if God were to leave me, I think it would be a loneliness beyond description. It would be an agony I don't know if I could bear. When loved ones I know have died, there has always been the promise of seeing them again. I think if God left me, I would feel as if that hope would be gone as well.

If God's glory left the Church I would feel responsible. Maybe Ezekiel felt responsible for the glory leaving the Temple. I think it would be my own negligence of God's Word and power that would have brought it about.

I've been in Churches where there is no "glory." Nice buildings. Great music. Beautiful settings. But like the rulers of the Temple from yesterday's reading, these Churches have idols and 'creeping things' in them. Toleration of sin and violence. Idolatry expressed in the love of money and form. Loyalty to social trends and disloyalty to God's morals.

They are like an empty house with no lights.

Why would God withdraw His glory? Is that even possible? I don't think God pulls away His glory as much as His glory is asked to leave by my actions or by the actions of the Church. In the case of the people in Ezekiels' day, God has been very tolerant of many things. His grace was boundless. Yet, through their own efforts again and again, the glory of God was dismissed.

God won't judge, they said.
We are God's people, they felt.
God judges others, not us, they opined.

And when they gave God cause for judgment, He meted it out by simply departing from them. They were left to the consequences of being without Him: lawlessness, violence, wickedness, immorality, idolatry, sin, and every other vice.

These aren't the familiar sounds of an empty house. They are the fearful things found in the dark.

May God's glory continue to provide comfort and light.