“When Something Vital Is Missing”

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Imagine the devastation felt by the Children of Israel as they dealt with the harsh reality of their captivity in Babylon. Jerusalem and the land of Judah had been overwhelmed by Babylonian troops. The beloved Temple of Solomon was in ruins. They were strangers in a strange land. In their minds God was dead and buried beneath the temple’s ruins. The gods of Babylon had proven to be mightier than the Lord God Almighty, or so they believed. Defeated and depressed they could see no bright future.

Imagine the distress of Ezekiel. He had preached long and loud God’s Word of warning to his fellow Judeans. God, being true to his promises, had allowed the people of Judah to suffer the consequences of their sinful behavior. With them Ezekiel had been carted off to Babylon. There, he who had been God’s prophet of doom sought to be God’s prophet of hope. He knew that God lived. He knew that God continued to work his will in mysterious ways.

Now imagine Ezekiel caught up in a Spirit-sent vision from God. Imagine him looking out over a valley of dry bones. Then imagine him obeying God’s command to preach to those bones, to tell them that God was going to rebuild them into recognizable human forms, and that furthermore, God was going to breathe his very Spirit into them and give them life. Imagine him watching God do exactly what God had promised to do. Imagine him hearing God tell him that those bones signified the house of Israel, a people who felt more dead than alive. Imagine him hearing and believing God's promise to redeem his children from captivity and restore them to their home in Judah.

Now imagine another scene unfolding centuries later. Two sisters, Mary and Martha, are devastated by the death of their brother Lazarus. They do not understand why their good friend Jesus had not come when they called to use his powers of healing. Why did Lazarus have to die when Jesus could have saved him?

Imagine their sad confusion when Jesus does show up. He had come, and that was good. Any time Jesus showed up was a good time. But as far as they were concerned he had only come to join them in their mourning. He’d even missed the funeral. The body of Lazarus had been left in a tomb to rot. The stench of death and decay was already strongly evident.

Now imagine their further confusion when Jesus asked to be led to the tomb and then ordered it to be opened. Why bother? There was nothing there but a decaying corpse. But imagine how interesting things then got. Jesus prayed to his Father. Then he called for Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. And Lazarus did, pretty much good as new. Imagine the joyousness of that moment – and the shock! A dead man was now alive. The stench of death was gone. Lazarus lived, and his sisters cried tears of joy. Imagine that!

Dry bones gathered together, enfleshed, and given life. A vision, yes, but a vision that revealed the power of God to deliver and heal his people. He would bring Israel out of her living death in Babylon. A nation would be resurrected.

A man dead. His body already four days in a tomb. He was cut off from the land of the living. His remains were wasting away as the natural biological process was at work doing what it always did to a dead body. His friends and sisters grieved. Even Jesus himself wept. All hope of life was gone. But Jesus, the Living Word of God made flesh, did what only God could do. He restored life to Lazarus. Lazarus came forth from a literal grave to rejoin his sisters in the land of the living.

Dry bones and dead bodies. Hopelessness and despair. Grief and sorrow. Exile from Judah and exile from the land of the living. A defeated nation in captivity. A rotting corpse in its tomb. In each situation something was vital missing. Captive Israel and dead Lazarus were both powerless. That which had given them meaning was gone. Humanly, practically, rationally speaking, they and those who loved them were without hope, or so it was believed.

In Israel’s case, the God they thought to be dead or powerless was anything but. In the case of Mary and Martha, the man they believed to be God in human flesh had withheld his power to heal. In their minds he had allowed death to win. They thought he had come to them with too little too late. They were wrong.

Where God is there is always hope. Where God is there is always the potential for deliverance. Where God is there is light in the midst of darkness, hope in the midst of hopelessness, and even life in the midst of death. God speaks and life is created. God breathes his Spirit into a person or nation and life is restored. Jesus walks into a situation and all bets are off. The unexpected – the unbelievable – that which we dare not even dream comes to pass.

In my own life I have had my share of Babylonian moments, times when I felt cut off from my roots, myself, and even God. No doubt each of you has had his or her own such moments. All of us have. We’ve known grief and loss. We’ve been overwhelmed by hopelessness. We’ve come face to face with darkness and despair. Some of us have even stood on the edge of death’s dark abyss, wondering if surrendering to that darkness might be less painful than facing the hellish darkness that our lives had become.

By the sheer grace of God the Spirit has a way of moving in our lives and pulling us back from the brink. By faith and faith alone we somehow manage to hold onto the glimmering image of a life beyond the darkness. Jesus has walked, as Jesus will, into the situations of our lives, and in his own time and his own way, brought about things totally unexpected, unbelievable, and way beyond our capacity to even dream.

In our Scripture lessons this morning we have caught glimpses of both Easter and Pentecost. Dry bones being reassembled into human beings and then breathed back into life by the Spirit of God: that is both a resurrection and Pentecost moment. A man dead and stinking in his tomb is brought back to life: that is indeed a resurrection moment. Although the Holy Spirit is not explicitly mentioned in John’s account of the raising of Lazarus, that too is a Pentecost moment. The power, strength, and vitality of God are reintroduced into scene picturing the loss of all three. A vital something that has been missing is put back by the Spirit and person of God.

The Christian life is always defined by Easter and Pentecost. We are a resurrection people. We are people who belong to a Church to which the Spirit gave birth on that first Pentecost Sunday. We belong to a Church that has over and over again stared death in the face. We belong to a Church that has been cruelly persecuted and driven underground. We belong to a Church that at times in its history has reeked from the stench of its own inner decay. We Christians know all about times of exile.

We also belong to a Church that risen from the ashes of persecution stronger than ever. A Church that has time and again been reborn from above as the Holy Spirit moved within and through it to bring about reformation and renewal. More than once God has taken the bare bones of Christ’s Church and refashioned them into something new and better. More than once God has breathed his Spirit into what seemed to be the Church’s rotting corpse and brought forth a vital, living body of believers. Those are all resurrection moments. Those are all Pentecost moments.

As we move through the end of Lent toward Palm Sunday, Passion Week, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday let’s be aware that we’re moving into times of remembering how Jesus’ day of celebration was the beginning of a week of conflict, betrayal, desertion, suffering and death. Let’s also be aware that we’re moving toward the highest, most holy day in the life of the Church: Easter. Yes, Jesus died, but he also lived – and still lives. And through the gift of his Spirit, his followers came out of hiding to become the most powerful force in history: the Body of Christ.

Dry bones: God can raise them up. The stench of death: the wind of the Spirit can blow it away. Resurrection happens, and Pentecost is never far behind. Amen.