Through The Golden Gate
Our Lord God declare us whole
Let us dwell safely among the trees
We set sights on thy palm with hope
You will lay hands on our hearts to be thine
Our Lord God sanctify our eyes and ears
Let us behold splendor to hear thy heart divine
Show the nations thy mighty mountain slope
Brass faces pray for mercy on our souls
The turn of the page finds us reading Ezekiel 39:21 - 40:39. The Hebrews exiled in Babylon after the destruction of the first temple Solomon built. We arrive on the scene with God speaking to Ezekiel. God will lay his hands upon the heathen to convert, purify and gather them to piece of land. Whereby God will pour out His spirit on them. Then Ezekiel gives the exact day in time he has a vision, an affidavit documenting the event. The vision description factual not romantic nor appealing to read. Ezekiel sees the future for the inhabitants for the New Jerusalem, a transformed nation of all people. All spiritually renewed living in communion with God and in willing obedience to God.
Ezekiel is then taken up to a high mountain with Jerusalem to the South. There is man of brass with a line of flax in one hand and a reed in the other. The Angel, I will refer to as the man made of brass hails Ezekiel, Son of Man see, hear, and set it to memory with intent to tell all. The Angel proceeds to state measurements as Ezekiel follows him through a magnificent structure. The Angel does not say what he is measuring. The rest of the text is the measurements and the accounting of all the rooms and how they are connected to one another.
The vision is for Ezekiel to impress upon the captives in Babylon. They have a future where they will not be enslaved and will return to Jerusalem in peace. The days of their transgressions are completed. It time for them embrace their new status of being redeemed by their compliance to walk in God’s commandments. It is also a vision for us today. Another telling of mankind after Jesus returns to earth fulfilling God’s promise to David. “There shall not fail thee A Man to be ruler in Israel [2 Chronicles 7:18 KJV].”
There is constant debate among those who read the scripture. Some believe it is the last temple to be built on Earth in Jerusalem. The forever perpetual place of prayer where everyone will be carried by Angels anytime they want to go there. Some are convinced it is the true house of God on his holy invisible mountain. Due to the fact there is no mountain range north of Jerusalem. This House of God is described with rooms clustered in groups of five with exact matching measurements everywhere. They begin their passage from the at the East gate, move around to North and South gates before going to the inner court gates with special rooms. Our reading ends with Ezekiel climbing eight steps flanked by palm trees to a porch normally would be used in preparations of offerings.
According to Hebrew experts Ezekiel’s vision occurred on April 28, 573 BC. Twenty-five years after Ezekiel was exiled. Monumental for Ezekiel to document, according to Hebrew Jubilee Law he completed half of his fifty year sentence. The captives being told of the vision would be reminded the promise is exactly like their ancestors deliverance from Egyptian bondage.
Many believe the vision beginning from the East gate along with the Angel hail of Son of Man is to remind us today Jesus left the Mount of Olives and enter Jerusalem from the East gate. It is believed by many the Second Coming is Jesus returning to Jerusalem through the same passage. Today the eastern gate is sealed shut and has been since 1541 by Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire. A natural assumption done so with the intent to keep the Jewish Messiah or the Antichrist the false Messiah from coming through the East gate.
There is no need to presume to know, Ezekiel documented the true reason. The east gate is sealed by God’s design. “1 Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. 2 Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. 3 It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same [Ezekiel 44:1-3].”
The East gate of Jerusalem is also called the Golden Gate and the Gate of Mercy. According to the apocryphal Proto Gospel of James it is the point of origin of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. A chaste kiss by her Parents Saints Joachim and Anne at the East Gate. From the worship tents of Moses with the Ark of the Covenant and King Solomon building of the first Holy Temple: God’s instruction is the only entrance to the Holy of Holies is from the East. I smile, a little twinkle grows in mine eye. Jesus sits on the right hand of God Almighty. The magnetic field of a common compass East is right of North and the Sun rises from the East. Hosea 13:15 declares “The East wind of Lord Jehovah” will overcome evil. From Genesis 2:14 to Revelation 21:13 East is beheld 157 times in wonder and brings forth destruction, tribulation, wisdom, and blessings.
Is it possible, Jesus Christ sits east of our Holy Father’s Throne in Heaven? My heart swells, our Lord God Almighty has a sacred favored gaze. It is not out of fear that I do not want to know the true cause of God’s intimate Easterly gaze. I secretly hope, not even Jesus is aware of the cause of such favor graced to the East. I cannot stop my hope, God has a precious secret of his own. This thought brings to mind Jesus’ claim, he does all things beautiful in his Father’s eye. There is an old saying, “Before you were a twinkle in your Father’s eye!” Everyone, I have ever witnessed such said to them, reacted with the same unspoken little secret smile.