Stretching out your hand into an active beehive to get honey will not end well. God gave us bees to pollinate ensuring many fruits and vegetables grow to feed us and animals. For the most part, we can avoid bees while they do their pollinating, but not when we want to get some honey. Honey is kept under close watch in the beehive and most of us have a story or two about being stung by a bee if we have tried to take a sample of it.
When we eat honey from the local farmers market or grocery store, we have a beekeeper to thank for it. Bees, the hive and honeycomb all work to make the honey, but the beekeeper collects it for us. The beekeeper sets up the hive for the bees, uses all the right equipment to collect the honeycomb without a sting, extracts the honey and provides it to us or the store for purchase pain free. If you and I tried to do what the trained beekeeper does without the established hive, experience and equipment, and tried to find a wild beehive, we would be lost and if we did find a wild hive, we would be hurt and hungry. And if we think of the Gospel like honey, then the land of Judah, its capital city of Jerusalem and the Temple all provided a place for God to do his work to save us through Jesus. And God delivers his sweet truth of Jesus through Christians as they speak to one another and to others who have not heard what he has done for them.
The truth of our Savior is sweet as honey, but God’s Word also stings with the truth about our stubborn sinfulness. In our Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 2, we read that the message God gave the prophet Ezekiel to share with Israel were 9 … “words of lament and mourning and woe.” The Israelites Ezekiel ministered to were in exile in Babylon living away from their homeland of Judah whose capital was Jerusalem where the Temple was located. Although they had been forcefully removed from their homeland and relocated as exiles, the people hoped to return soon, but Ezekiel shared the news that God would allow Judah, Jerusalem and even the Temple to be destroyed.
This message was unbelievable for most and put Ezekiel in a fearful position, but when God gave Ezekiel this message it was sweet as we read the end of Ezekiel 2 and beginning of 3, 9 Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, 10 which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe… 3:3 Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. The message Ezekiel was given to share with the people was sweet as honey because it was the truth. God gave Ezekiel his message as a scroll to be eaten to make it part of him. His ministry would not be easy, and the truth needed to be rooted deeply in him. Ezekiel’s ministry was not to a foreign place with a new language to learn, but to his own people who clearly understood his words. Yet, they were a stubborn and rebellious people. To give Ezekiel encouragement and let him know that he understood what he had commissioned him for, God said to him, 8 But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. 9 I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people. As Ezekiel shared God’s Word, some would repent for their rebellion against God that brought about their exile and destruction of their homeland, but many would remain stubborn and unrepentant.
Naturally, we would rather have the sweet than the sting. As with Ezekiel, we come with a message of “lament and mourning and woe.” Ezekiel ministered to people whose worldview had turned away from God. The exiles in Babylon held out hope that they would return to an intact Judah, Jerusalem and the Temple, but they failed to see the big picture. Those places were significant because God had made promises about them regarding deliverance from sin and death; centuries later, Jesus would use these places to provide his sacrifice and be raised from the dead. But at the time of Ezekiel, Israel had rebelled against God turning from trust in his promised Messiah and lost God’s protection leaving them conquered by Babylon. To bring them back to God, not to a physical place, Ezekiel exposed their sin.
We minister to people who also have a distorted worldview of God. Some may not believe in God at all putting their hope behind a social movement, political party or their accumulated wealth. Others may have faith in God but keep him on the back burner while their time, focus, money, thoughts, words, etc. also serve a social movement, political party or accumulated wealth. When we upset someone’s worldview by exposing their stubborn hold on this world and rebellion against God, it stings. When we expose someone’s love for the world in place of love for God, fear stirs in our hearts like a swarm of bees, and we struggle to share the truth. All of us have people in our lives who we are afraid to have a conversation with about Jesus even though we know what he has done for them and how they need what he freely gives. All of us have held back the scroll of God’s Word, rather than stretch it out, in fear, in thinking the person will not listen and in doubting the power of the Holy Spirit to give the gift of faith, none of which are good.
When God stretched out his scroll, he asked Ezekiel to eat it multiple times. Ezekiel did not choose to be prophet to Israel. God chose him, and stretched out his message to him that would deliver people from despair over their current circumstances and give them the hope of belonging to a nation greater than any in this world. Later in Ezekiel 34, this promise is shared with the exiles, 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. Scattered, stubborn and sinful, God’s message looked unappetizing, but he continued to call to Ezekiel and to Israel through him. As with them, God reaches out to us through his Word repeating his promise of deliverance. We have been delivered by Jesus who faced opposition for sharing a message of “lament and mourning and woe” by calling people to repent. The stubborn rebellious sinful world showed itself by condemning and stretching the hands of the innocent Son of God out on the cross to die, but it was only a sting that God worked through to save us. Jesus has rescued us from whatever our situation is to give us hope in the eternal promised land of heaven.
Ezekiel was unpopular. The people he served needed a true message from God as their world was reshaped and things they once thought were solid melted away, but they were stubborn. Our message remains the same as Ezekiel’s, and our world is in as much flux and confusion if not more. The people we each have a relationship with need the truth. We do not need to travel to find people who are stubborn and rebellious, who set God aside and pour their hope into their own ideas about what will bring them security or the sweet life.
They are in our midst and in the mirror. We are not out to trick or exploit, we are here to speak the sweet truth of Jesus with love as are pastors as we hear in our New Testament reading from 1 Peter 5, 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. As with any pastor, God wants his people to have hearts willing to speak all his words. And we do that when God’s Word has become part of us, when we have eaten all of it both that which convicts of sin and that which comforts us with forgiveness. We may be unpopular, but we have this encouragement from our Gospel reading from Luke 10, when Jesus sent out 72 to go to the towns he was about to visit, 16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” We are here as speakers, not converters. We represent God and trust the Holy Spirit will do his good work in his time as we share the Word of God. And through it all, we also have this great comfort from Jesus in Luke 10, 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
Stretching out your hand into an active beehive to get honey will not end well. Getting at honey is not easy and most of us have a story or two about being stung by a bee. The message God gave the prophet Ezekiel stung as it reminded Israel of their stubborn rebellion. The message was not popular, but when God gave it to Ezekiel as a scroll to eat, it was sweet as honey because it was the truth. Ezekiel also shared the message of God’s deliverance through the Savior, Jesus, who stretched out his hands on the cross to save us. And now filled with God’s sweet truth, go and speak it to others. Amen.
Gunnar Ledermann, Pastor Divine Peace Church
Gunnar Ledermann
I’m passionate about Rockwall’s vibrant community and actively engage with local non-profits and community organizations, including the Rockwall Chamber of Commerce, the City of Rockwall, and the Downtown Rockwall Association. My background includes a bachelor’s degree in Classical Languages and a master’s degree in divinity. Currently serving as a pastor at Divine Peace Church in Rockwall, I also enjoy spending time with my wife, Marinda, and our three children.
