I was about to go sleep just now but happened to listen to a song. The song, "Pitiful," reminded me of a scripture in Ezekiel, in which a baby is saved from the side of the road...
Ezekiel Chapter 16 is one of the most emotional, vivid, heartbreaking, and intense stories I have ever read in the Bible. It is the wretched story of a most unfortunate infant rejected by its parents at birth. A young baby is left for dead in the middle of a field. The mother's blood and bodily fluids have not even been washed from the baby girl. She is lying in the field "polluted in [her] own blood," without anyone pitying her. All who pass by leave her for dead, until one stranger picks her up and says, "LIVE."
He cleans her up, clothes her, and raises the child. He raises the child and gives her the best. She becomes a full-figured, beautiful woman with long hair (v.7). Because of her tainted past, no one will marry her, so this man, her caretaker, makes a marriage vow to her. He clothes her in the finest apparel in all the land, gives her beautiful jewelry, and parades her around to the rest of the world as a beauty queen.
Several years into marriage, she starts to sleep around and eventually goes into prostitution, leaving her husband. She is unfaithful for years.
Years later her husband finds her and strips her naked of all her beautiful clothing, as punishment for her infidelity. He has all the various possessions from her various lovers burned. She repents and he accepts her back, letting her know his covenant with her is forever.
This is our story. We are born into a world of sin, ourselves possessing a sin nature, damned as we came out of our mother's placenta kicking and screaming, into a world damned with us. Doomed to indulge in the sin nature ascribed to us by the fathers of our species, Adam and Eve, we all had hell to pay before we'd reached the age of being able to crawl. Christ Jesus saw our pitiful condition and left his throne in the skies to walk among us. He sweat and bled in the world he was so grieved with. He made us spiritually beautiful, adorning us with his divine nature. He commands us to be new creatures, being Christian, being "Christ-like," exhibiting the nature of God. Of course, we sleep around. Meaning, we sell ourselves to the things of this life. We use the talents, giftings, abilities, and beauty he has given us and we use it for such trifles as drink and sex and ambition and war and pride and lust. We are unfaithful to the One who fathered, married, and ultimately died for us. He judges us for our wickedness, exposes us for our ingratitude, and once we have repented, gladly accepts us back into communion with Himself.
As I thought about the song I'd heard and this story in Ezekiel, I felt my soul weeping. We are so frail and helpless to serve our Maker. As it were, we have been polluted in the pool of our own blood, lying helplessly waiting to be rescued from our apathy, our indifference to righteousness, our carelessnesss to observe the decrees of a holy God. When He does rescue us, and we're finally free, we backslide, throwing the shed blood of Christ back in His beautiful face. When we do this, we become the perpetrators of the nails permanently scarring His beautiful, outstretched hands. And yet again, as if saved a second time, He chastises us and receives us back, restoring us.
Even now, I feel the eyes of Jesus sweeping through the masses of humanity, searching for my eyes, desperately trying to make contact. And when those all-seeing, all-loving eyes almost catch mine, I find myself avoiding His glance. I look away. I turn my head and look at my feet, ashamed of my pride and my indifference to serving Him.
And we are indifferent. Did Christ die so we could observe Sunday morning worship and dutifully read the Bible daily? Or was he slain, perhaps, that I should enter into intimate friendship with Him, loving Him as I would a spouse or a brother, yet worshiping Him as the Essence of goodness itself? Because in practice we follow the former model, we are indifferent.
No matter how hard we try, we are still pitiful. Woefully unable to hit the mark. Even the most dedicated priest or minister will lust after a woman...will slip and curse with his mouth...will become offended with his good friend...will venerate Himself rather than God...will grow weary of loving Christ through our actions. Does Christ ever get tired of loving us? Then why, friend, should we ever grow tired of loving Him? Loving Him through spending time with Him, giving to Him, consecrating everything to Him.
May God help us to meet his gaze. As his eyes sweep through the crowds searching for only you, only me, yet everyone all at once, let us not look away. Look Him in the eye and realize He is breathing hot down your neck, pursuing you, wanting to love you, to adore you with beautiful clothing and show you off to the rest of the unbelieving world what it means to walk in His light and glory.
Oh that we could stop pretending that everything is alright! I sometimes imagine myself watching Jesus die on the cross, His eyes meeting mine. It probably would have appeared to most people that day that Jesus was the pitiful one, dying a wretched cross-death, slowly asphyxiating. But I believe that for everyone who looked into His eyes that day as he hung there...there was a heart-stopping, shooting pain through their nervous system.
It is I that am pitiful. He is doing this for me because I am pitiful. I am too proud and self-loving to ever experience what He is going through. And so that fateful day, He hung there, being pitiful for us...bearing the shame we were meant to bear, Love itself crucified, paying the our debt which Justice demanded.
He took our place on the side of the road. As were being rescued from our polluted bloodbathed condition by the Father, He was taking our place on the side of the road, polluted in the stench of his own sweat and blood, rolling down his body and dripping onto the unworthy ground below.
And though we are filthy still, He is patient with us, continually washing the garments we dirty up so easily. And He parades us proudly as a Father would a daughter, as a husband would his beautiful wife...we may be pitiful, but He is proud. Proud to call us His own.
And so this story's ending has a most certain outcome, though it has no end. Its author pulls us out of the muck and the filth and the mud and the blood and says....
Live.
Ezekiel 16"Pitiful" Lyrics
