Jeff Adams

I heard today that this Labor Day Weekend could be the third largest travel weekend of the decade. Perhaps you have some big plans for a final holiday before Fall and the school year get into full gear. We are just looking foward to spending some down time at home. I’m also looking forward to starting the latest Nehemiah series, Confronting Obstacles, this Sunday.

Today, however, we did something we haven’t had a chance to do for a long time. We took a complete day off just to relax. I honestly can’t remember when the last time was we didn’t use my “day off” to run errands, work, travel, or something else. So, after breakfast we decided to take a day trip to Weston, MO, where we had not been for years.

Weston, Missouri

Off we headed thinking the rain would stop by the time we got there. It didn’t. The rain didn’t stop us, though, from popping our heads into some of the shops. Then, we stumbled into Charlemagne’s Restaurant, owned and operated by a direct descendant of the great king. The menu is a combination of Spanish, German, French, Italian and other European influences suggested by Charlemagne’s empire. It’s a cute little place with good food and reasonable prices. I’d go back.

We next headed across the river toward Atchison, KS thinking the rain would stop by the time we got there. It didn’t. We still had a nice time driving around and looking at some of the wonderful old homes and the campus of St. Benedictine’s College.

OK, I’ve said all this to ask the question, what are your favorite day trips? I know that many of you don’t live in the Kansas City area, but it still might be fun to know your favorite day trips and make the rest of us envious.

On August 26th I shared some thoughts from Psalm 90 about how we are always at home in the Lord. He is our dwelling place. There is another side to this story.

The other day I was reading from the first chapter of Ezekiel, one of the wildest, most exotic scenes of scripture. You know this story, don’t you?

Ezekiel was born a priest in Jerusalem. The book of his prophecy opens with Ezekiel in his fifth year of captivity. Ezekiel is a contemporary of Jeremiah, and Jerusalem has still not been leveled by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Yet all that God has been speaking through Jeremiah and others indicated clearly that the Jewish captives were to settle in for the long haul. It would be more than a generation before a remnant would return to the holy city.

David Gafni. “The Throne of God and the Creatures of the Chariot – Merkabah”

Who could blame us for being fascinated by the HD scene with which Ezekiel opens his prophecy? Ezekiel sees a whirlwind drop out of a massive cloud bank on the northern horizon, clouds bulging, throbbing and pulsating with a technicolor light show.

Had Ezekiel lived in our part of the country, he would have made a beeline for the storm cellar. Instead, he sees four living beings emerge from the stormy and threatening swirl of clouds. They are unlike anything he, or anyone else, has ever seen. Ezekiel’s description has been portrayed in countless charts, diagrams, sketches and artist’s renderings. I’ve seen many of them and I still can’t get my head around what Ezekiel saw.

He sees man-like beings with four faces, four wings  and “straight” feet whose soles were the color of burnished brass and resembled a calf’s’ hoof.  They seem to move only at right angles,and it’s almost like he sees them riding around on some sort of gyroscope-powered Segways.

Is it any wonder we get sucked into endless speculation about what all this means? How could we resist? We plunge headlong into this cauldron of colorful and mystical imagery, splitting hairs and churches in this chapter that has all the makings of a breeding ground for cults.

Just those four faces alone are enough to drain four thermoses of coffee in a hotel lobby at a Bible Geek convention – the face of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle.  Those four faces are said to represent everything from the four Gospels, the four winds, the four corners of the world and the four seasons, to a four cheese pizza.

But wait! There is more. Whatever all this represents, it merely sets the stage for the main character. A voice thunders forth out of the galaxy of lights spinning in the clouds and the likeness of a throne appears. Focusing more closely, Ezekiel sees the likeness of a man on the throne (Ezekiel 1:26).

Laying aside all the peacock-like color of the scene Ezekiel tries so hard to describe, one clear message surfaces. Ezekiel clearly understands the point of it all – This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one who spake (Ezekiel 1:28).

We get so enthralled with the spectacular imagery and symbolism that we miss the obvious. It’s like getting so entranced with an IMAX film on the North Pole you don’t even notice that a polar bear just sat in your lap.

Here is the obvious, so obvious it is almost invisible – you and I have mobile phones; God has a mobile throne!

God’s mobile throne would have been a huge revelation for Ezekiel. As a priest, Ezekiel’s entire identity was tied to the Temple in Jerusalem. Now he finds himself a captive in Babylon and God was forecasting through his prophets that they were not going home anytime soon and that the city and temple would be totally destroyed. Ezekiel would never again see the temple, but he now knows that God has a mobile throne that can appear anywhere Ezekiel happens to be.

It’s great to know that we are always at home when we have our dwelling place in the Lord, but it is equally comforting to know that there is no place we can go where God is not already there. His throne is mobile. Or, as Jesus said, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.