Sermon for March 9th

The prophet Ezekiel stands in the middle of a valley. He looks up and he sees high, rocky mountains or maybe there were green rolling hills all around him. The bright sky above his head creates a beautiful scene declaring the wonders of God, the greatness of the almighty. But then he looks down to the ground. And as he looks down, around his feet, he notices something. What is he seeing? Something unfamiliar. He takes a closer look, squinting to make sure that he’s not just hallucinating in the glare of the sun. Then he straightens up in a shiver. All around him, filling the valley, are bones. He is standing in the middle of a graveyard.

These are not just some dead cow skulls littering the ground that he has to step around. These are human bones. To his right, there are piles upon piles of dead, dry bones. Dry bones. Old bones. As he turns to his left there are more. Hundreds upon hundreds of femurs, skulls and ribs lying scattered on the ground. He quickly scans all around him and there are more and more, piles and piles of bones. Like some kind of unfathomable disaster destroyed an entire group of people and laid them waste in a moment. All around him, lying in piles or scattered on the ground. He stands in the middle of the valley. Surrounded. By bones. Dead people. Dry bones. He stands surrounded by the silence of death.

Then, God speaks, breaking the silence. God breaks the silence with a question, “Mortal, can these bones live?” But you know what I’d like to know if I were Ezekiel? Before I even thought, or imagined, or cared whether these dead dry bones surrounding me could live again? I’d want to know what happened. I’d like to know how they died. I’d like to know how a disaster, of this great a proportion, came to happen, leaving so many people to die and lie as a bunch of bones in the middle of a valley. And, more than that, how could God let it happen? So, before we follow this reading in Ezekiel to its end, and find out if these bones can live, I’d like to find out who is responsible for all these dead, dry bones in the first place.

In the book of Ezekiel, the prophet is constantly being called on by God to proclaim judgment against the holy city of Jerusalem for the sin of its people. Remember that Jerusalem was the place of worship for an entire nation, it was the symbol of Israel and of the continued presence and favor of God for his people. I’ll read for you a little bit from Ezekiel, chapters 21 and 22, “Mortal, set your face toward Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuaries; Thus says the Lord: I am coming against you, and will draw my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked.” “As one gathers silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into a smelter, to blow the fire upon them in order to melt them; so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you; and you shall know that I the Lord have poured out my wrath upon you.”

Jerusalem was captured and destroyed in 587 BC, right during the time that Ezekiel was a prophet. And now, after the destruction of the temple. After many words of judgment from God, Ezekiel stands in the middle of a valley surrounded by bones. These bones are not the bones of dead Israelites from Jerusalem. However, they could just as well be. And for the Israelites, who had lost their homes, their place of worship, their families, their livelihoods and were scattered into exile, these bones strewn across the valley no doubt looked like a reflection of their experience and their lives. Who is responsible for all these dead dry bones?

Ezekiel chapter 5 says this, “Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem, I have set here in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries all around her. Therefore, because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not followed my statutes or kept my ordinances, I, I myself am coming against you; I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. Because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again.”

Who is responsible for all these dead dry bones? There are two answers. When Ezekiel announced his words to the Israelites, they would have had two answers as well. God is responsible and we are responsible. We have sinned against God and God has punished us. God was responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem, no doubt about it, but that also doesn’t get the Israelites off the hook.

So, now, back to that other question, the question that God posed to Ezekiel as the prophet is standing out in this valley of dry bones. The Lord asks Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel answers, “O Lord God, you know.” Now wait a minute. Why doesn’t Ezekiel just answer the question? Why does Ezekiel wait for God? Ezekiel must realize that the people who died and now lie there as dead bones were responsible for their sin and for their eventual destruction. Even if God did the punishing. Why doesn’t Ezekiel look to the dead bones of those people for any hope of new life? In fact, he could have even look to himself for an answer, he was a prophet. Couldn’t he have done something? Why does he insist on waiting for God’s answer? And what do you think? Can these bones live?

Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. During Lent, we are called to repentance, asking forgiveness for what we do wrong in our lives. Lent is really no different than any other time of the year, but as a church we focus on our weakness so that we can find strength in Jesus’ death and resurrection is. So that, in our weakness, we can find strength in God. But it is easy to start thinking that the more we repent, the better off we become. The more guilty we feel, the more religious we look. We start looking at our dead, dry bones and expecting new life to just start popping out. If only we just worked a little harder. Do a few more good things. Give up chocolate or smoking or swearing for a few weeks. But dead bones just lie there on the ground, they can’t do anything else.

Can you actually live again when you die? Can you forgive the person that hates you and treats you like dirt? Can you stop your habit of getting drunk? Can you stop gambling? Can you be healed? Can you really trust God? The only answer I have for you is to join me in praying to our heavenly Father and say, “O Lord God, you know.” Or, as the psalm we read today says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope.” Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, but apart from me you can do nothing.

There is no point in expecting your dead, dry bones to start living again. Even if you are really motivated. But listen to what God can do, this time, from the book of 1st Samuel, “The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and he raises up.” You can trust that God is just as compassionate about raising you from the dead as he is passionate to destroy your sin. And during Lent, you can find out just how far your Savior is willing to go to save you. All the way to death on a cross to defeat sin. All the way into a tomb to defeat death. All the way into hell to defeat the Devil. And all the way into this world to defeat you and bring your dead dry bones to life.

In the readings from Ezekiel that spoke of wrath and destruction, God kept repeating that the Israelites would know that it was the Lord that did these things. In today’s reading, God insists that the Israelites will know him now in a new way, He says, “You shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves O my people.” We do not know God only as a loving God, nor do we know God only as an angry God. We know him as both. God’s love and kindness is meant to lead you to ask forgiveness again and again. Jesus loves you, not so that you will rest confident in your sins, but so that you will repent of everything, so that Jesus can be all in all for you. So that you can rest completely in his arms, perfectly passive, like a pile of old bones. Waiting for the Lord of all to start speaking you back to life.

“O dry bones, hear the words of the Lord, Thus says the Lord God to your bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” Amen.