“As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut; you were not washed with water or anointed; you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye looked on you with pity or compassion to do any of these things for you. Rather, on the day you were born you were left out in the field, rejected. Then I passed by and saw you struggling in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, “Live!”( Ezekiel 16:4-6)
Ezekiel uses strong words to describe the pitiful, raw scene of a forsaken newborn infant, lying in its blood, with uncut cord, unwashed and struggling to breathe. These words were written metaphorically at the time, to reveal God’s desire to nurture His people, the Israelites. Jesus, by example, made it clear that His Father desires to nurture every living soul, from all nations, cultures, and ethnic origins.
This scripture came to my mind one day, while I was driving, as I saw a goose lying dead on the side of the road. It was obvious that it was hit by a car. The image of a creature that was created to soar graciously through the air, but instead, was lying dead, with mangled wings, was so sad to see. There is something heart breaking when any life form is unable to do what it was created to do.
We are wingless creatures of God’s creation, but we were created to soar in faith, hope and love, during our time here. I wondered if God sees people in the way I saw that poor goose. God wants us to soar in whatever way He created us to soar.
In Ezekiel’s brutally raw description, scripture often uses physical imagery to describe a spiritual or emotional condition. The wording indicates that God was “passing by” and saw the infant struggling to live.
God doesn’t cause anyone’s trauma, affliction or abandonment, nor does He inflict tragedies upon people, but He certainly seeks out those who are outcasts, abandoned and suffering, in order to speak new life to them.
Over and over in Old Testament scripture, God is depicted as a parental figure, and in this case, He shows His compassion for a helpless infant, gasping for breath, struggling and squirming to survive, and says,
“I saw you struggling in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, Live!”
I believe that God is speaking to every human being through this scripture, calling us wherever we are, to rise up and “Live.”
Even when people resist His call, and abandon themselves, God is the good Father, who never gives up.
Ezekiel’s imagery describes a helpless new born, not a rebellious man or woman, doing evil or committing various sins. This passage of scripture reveals that God sees people as helpless children, who He wants to pick up and raise as His own, as one would raise an adopted child.
We may see some people as lost causes, but God sees sons and daughters. Some were cast out by society, but others have cast themselves out, through ignorance or rebellion, but God’s desire is to pick them up wherever they lie and wash them clean. By grace He forgives, adopts, nurtures and makes them new. It’s a message meant for everyone to hear.
I was once sharing my faith with an atheist many years ago, and he said that he wanted nothing to do with an ego driven God, who demands to be worshipped. It left me speechless, because I wondered how anyone could have such a perception of God, as egotistic and demanding worship.
The scripture today reveals a God, who sees Himself as a father to all outcasts. He picks up the discarded ones in the world, and nurtures them back to health, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and His motive is pure parental love, not egotism.
During my years in the Pentecostal church, I knew several people who once lived as outcasts, but after surrendering themselves to Jesus, were transformed. I remember a man named Jim, who lived the first half of his life as a heroin addict, on the streets of Chicago, until he heard the message of the gospel, and surrendered his life to Jesus. He found the loving arms of His heavenly father, and like the baby in today’s scripture, Jim was picked up by the Lord, washed, and healed through rehab, never touching drugs again. He found who he was meant to be, and soared in faith, hope and love, serving God and ministering to others for the rest of his life.
God loved us first, asking nothing in return. He finds us, we don’t find Him. He offers us His fatherhood, friendship and a family of believers during this life and for all eternity.
The same parental instincts are placed within each of us, because we were created in God’s image.
Lord, we love you, because you first loved us. Thank you for washing us in the waters of forgiveness and baptism. Help us to soar in faith, hope and love, showing compassion to those around us who are suffering as outcasts. Amen
