"Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God." Ezekiel 1:1 

2,600 years ago the armies of Babylon marched through Israel. They took captive and deported the skilled laborers, the priests and the king of Judah. The deportations came in waves. First in 605 BC, a group including a young man named Daniel. Then in 597 BC the Babylonian invaders took the royal family, King Johoiachin (in the messianic line), the best fighting men, the craftsmen and a priest named Ezekiel. Only the poor remained sifting through ruins and burnt fields. Finally in 586 BC the final blow, Jerusalem and the temple were reduced to dust. In the summer of 592 BC Jerusalem still had her walls intact, and the empty temple in her midst. Jeremiah was prophesying while his countrymen falsely accused him of treason.

His desperate cry of "thus saith the Lord' surrender to Babylon and live", still ignored by the vassal king Zedekiah. (One of the ways the Babylonians expanded the influence of their empire was to place kings on the thrones of their enemies who would be loyal to Babylon instead of their own people. Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was such a king. Though he was Jewish, he had been put in power to rule in Babylon's favor.) Meanwhile, Ezekiel who had been living as a refugee in Babylon for five years "among the exiles" heard from God. God describes these exiles as "rebellious and stiff necked", and "stubborn and obstinate". (Ezekiel 2:3-6). These folks were openly hostile to the message, which God was giving Ezekiel yet we see that the prophet was not isolated from the people to whom he was being sent. Even after the vision, (Ezekiel 3:15) "I sat where they sat". A school of identification was the final training of the prophet for his ministry. Even though the exiles were a fallen people; even though they had false hopes for peace and victory bolstered by the lying visions of false prophets; even though the exiles were not a people of true faith; yet, these people were the "good figs" in the vision of Jeremiah. (see Jeremiah chapter 24) These exiles were the remnant which God would preserve and from which He would bring forth his Holy Seed.

God does a very good job of separating us unto his work while we are "among the exiles". God's work separates us from the world while we are yet in it. When we try to separate ourselves from people we end up looking like a Pharisee. Incidentally, "Pharisee" means separatist. God does not sanctify us in self-imposed isolation. The only valid scriptural distinction we should see between others and ourselves is the work of God in our soul. We sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep because God in us weeps there; thus we are enabled to sing praise to God in a foreign land. In such a place as the rivers of Babylon, the very life source, of pagan Babylon, among a generation that had completely abandoned the God of Israel, "the heavens were opened" - for an exiled priest without a temple.

The "heavens were opened", what does that really mean? First consider the heavens, the hidden realm. Recall its angels, who we only rarely see on this side of the vale. Think of the mystery of it, the clouds and the darkness, which surround the throne of God. Value its secrets enough to seek out the knowledge of God. This is the substance, of what was "opened" to Ezekiel. The revelation of the heavenly things is a matter of seeing into the things God has already made (as opposed to imagining what might be). Literally, the word, revelation means, "taking off the cover". Ezekiel did not make it up or fabricate his vision like some new thing. Ezekiel was allowed to see what was already there. Things like love, justice, peace, joy. Things often sought but rarely obtained are all in the heavens - the world beyond the sunset. The grace of God lets us taste it, see it, touch it. Blind faith is just wishful thinking rapped in a religious robe. Real Faith connects with God and brings into this world the things of the world to come.