Caught Being Christian

13 August 2026  Ezekiel 12:1-12

“Now, son of man, during the day, while they are looking on….”  (Ezekiel 12:1)

Have you ever been caught being a Christian? Have you ever been caught by people who weren’t expecting you to do it?

Seven times in Ezekiel 12 the phrase “while they looked on” appears. Ezekiel was called, loud and clear, to get caught being a prophet. It wasn’t the first time.

We are all intended to be like angels, beings whom, if we were to see them now, we would be sorely tempted to worship. A lot of people don’t get that yet, so we have to do things while they look on.

Once Ezekiel was called to lie on his left side for 390 days to symbolize the sin and punishment of the northern kingdom of Israel, another 40 on his right side for the sin of the southern kingdom of Judah (Ezekiel 4:4-8). While he was lying there, he was ordered to weigh out small portions of unclean bread, and to cook them over a fire of human dung, to illustrate to the people the famine and uncleanness that was coming in the Exile (4:9-13). He was told to shave his head and his beard, and to divide the hair into three piles, each one representing another feature of the pain train that was coming (5:1-12). He was ordered to perform a little pantomime of a people leaving hurriedly into exile (12:1-12), and most bizarre and painful of all, when his wife died suddenly, he was told not to mourn her, a final sign that the people would not even get a chance to mourn the land and the life they were about to lose (24:15-27). 

Have you ever been caught being a Christian? Have you ever been caught red-handed by people who weren’t expecting you to do it, doing a strange thing so that they would understand?

Getting caught going to church counts for this, but pretty much all the people who catch you at church rather expect you to be there. But what about things like reading the Bible in a public place, going for a walk with a rosary in your hand, speaking up at places of grave sin, or deep pain? Those things are harder to do because people don’t expect you to do them, might not understand what you are doing, might object. But you do them because they don’t understand – they don’t understand why you are doing these things, and they don’t understand their own situation. C.S. Lewis once wrote:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, p. 46)

We are all intended to be like angels, beings whom, if we were to see them now, we would be sorely tempted to worship. A lot of people don’t get that yet, so we have to do things while they look on.

A young nurse one day appeared sad and distracted, and the Catholic she was talking to asked, “Are you OK? What’s wrong?” The nurse admitted to being worried about a sick husband. The Catholic grasped her hand gently and said, “Is it OK if I pray for you right now? Don’t worry, if anybody comes by, I’ll stop.” Before she could object, he started: “Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on this woman, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming – she is yearning now for a sign of your presence. Amen.” Someone came by, and he stopped. The moment was gone, and soon he left.

But for that moment she knew that she was not a mere mortal because someone made an opportunity to pray while she looked on.