I have plans for when I reach heaven--seeing Jesus, reuniting with loved ones, exploring the splendors of heaven, apologizing to Ezekiel. . . Although I can't claim to have mastered any book of the Bible, I have an embarrassingly loose grasp on the book of Ezekiel. I am not good with symbolism and Ezekiel uses symbols like Paris Hilton uses a credit card. So my plan for when I met Ezekiel was to apologize, knowing that we will all be exceptionally good sports about such things in heaven. But I may revise that plan. I have spent my summer doing homiletics on Ezekiel, one chapter a day. Homiletics is a wonderful way to study and apply scripture, but it really only analyzes what is there, it does not interpret symbols. However, I found two tools that have helped me immensely: 1) a free online commentary by Ian McEvoy--in simple English (I happen to be fluent in Simple) 2) realizing that most of the book is poetry.
I am a budding, blooming, fading poet myself and, even though Hebrew poetry is different, especially when translated to English, I have begun to recognize poetic patterns. In poems even I use symbols and, if I really don't get it, good old Ian straightens me out. Ezekiel is not a feel good book, most of the symbols are to explain to clueless exiles still hoping to return someday to Jerusalem, just how badly Israel has sinned and that Jerusalem won't be there to go back to. There is no way to make that message "seeker friendly". In Hollywood, Ezekiel would be a disaster movie. Yet the recurring theme of the book is, "Then they will know that I am the Lord". God is revealed just as much in judgment as he is in love. Try putting that on a bumper sticker.
Studying a book of inevitable judgment is kind of a downer but the good news is now, when I bump into Ezekiel in the afterlife, I won't have to just shrug in embarrassment. And he can do his own commentary.
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