Let us pray. Our Father in heaven: send us your Spirit so that we may receive your Word and believe it. Breathe your Word into our lives and comfort us by it to life eternal. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
If you walk around a sheep or cattle field, you’re likely to come across a bone or two. After the bones have been out in the elements, they turn really white as the sun scorches them dry. Have you ever seen or found bones in a field? Imagine walking around an entire field full of bones. The sun is beating down. As far as the eye can see is cracked dirt and dry bones — skulls, jaws, rib cages, leg and arm bones. What feelings does this vision evoke for you? Perhaps the scene is overwhelming. As you wonder around the aftermath of death and destruction, perhaps you feel helpless or uncertain, full of grief, worry, and fear.
In our reading, the people of Israel cry out to God for help: “Our bones are dried up. We’ve lost all hope. We are cut off.” (Ezekiel 37:11). What situation was so terrible that the people cry out like this? Ezekiel is given this vision of death and restoration as he sits in exile with God’s people in Babylon. Under the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian empire has defeated the Egyptians and Syrians, and taken control of the vast lands now known as the Middle East. In 598 BCE Nebuchadnezzar leads his army to Jerusalem. They lay siege to the city. They breach the walls. The temple and palace are looted and ransacked. All the leading men (officers, soldiers, priests, skilled workers, artists), plus the royal family, are captured and deported to Babylon — ten thousand men (not counting women and children) are sent into exile.
Years later those left in the city rebel. So the Babylonians raze it to the ground, smashing the walls, demolishing buildings and the entire society. Life as the Israelite people know has ended. The dwelling place of God on earth lies in ruins. The people have been crushed, left without land, without a future. So they cry out, “Our bones are dried up. We’ve lost all hope. We are cut off.” (Ezekiel 37:11). They sit hopeless in the dust, lifeless, a pile of dry, sun scorched bones.
This reading from Ezekiel chapter 37 is the assigned reading in the lectionary for this Fifth Sunday in Lent (29 March 2020). How fitting for our current circumstances! Given the impact of the coronavirus COVID-19, do you feel like the Israelite people? Do you feel like a pile of dry, sun scorched bones? Has life as you know ended? Does the church, God’s dwelling place on earth, lie in ruins, because we’re no longer able to meet in large groups? Do you feel lifeless, hopeless, without a future?
During Lent we reflect on the suffering and death of Jesus. On the cross Jesus experienced exile and isolation from his heavenly Father, as he willingly bore your sickness and sin. On the cross Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Jesus died an agonizing death, alone. His dead bones were buried in a tomb. His followers at the time no doubt felt lifeless, hopeless, without a future.
But in the midst of death and destruction, in the midst of these bones, God gives a double command to Ezekiel. “Prophesy to these bones,” he says. “Prophesy to the breath.” To “prophesy” just means to speak God’s Word. But how can speaking God’s Word help? Doesn’t God know the people are already dead and beyond help, just a pile of dry bones?!. The people are so far gone they don’t even have ears left to hear — the crows have long ago picked off their flesh! Doesn’t God realise that it’s hopeless?! How can God’s Word do anything?
But Ezekiel obeys. He knows that nothing is hopeless for our Lord and King. God is the creator of the entire universe. He is Maker of heaven and earth. He brought the whole cosmos into being by Word alone. From the dust he formed humankind with his mere breath. So Ezekiel speaks God’s creative and life-giving Word. Amazingly the bones rattle together, the Spirit rushes to breathe life into them. This was God’s message for the people as they cried out in exile: “Nothing is hopeless for your Lord and King, my Word brings life to the dead, my Spirit can do something new — even with dead bones.”
Likewise, God spoke his life-giving Word over the dead bones of his Son Jesus, as he lay in the tomb. And he too was raised to new life. God breathed his breath of life into Jesus’ dead body, and raised him up.
The Word of God has not lost any of its power today. The Word of God takes things which look dead and hopeless, and brings new life. New possibilities. This has already happened to you in baptism. You were dead in sin, infected with the sickness of fallen humanity. Nothing but a field of sun scorched bones, without even ears to hear. Yet in baptism God spoke his Word into your life. He breathed his Spirit into you. And what happened? You, who were once dead and buried with Christ in the tomb, were resurrected to new life. God breathed his breath of life into you and raised you from the grave, doing something new.
And I believe God’s promise still stands today. We might feel that society, our own lives, or the church is a field of dry, sun scorched bones. We might be crying out to God, asking our questions. “Our bones are dried up. There’s no hope. There’s no future. God, where are you? What on earth are you doing?” God listens to our cry. And he promises that his Word, his breath, his Spirit can do something new with this pile of dead bones.
It’s important to sit in the pile of bones and cry out. It’s important to lament and fire our questions at God. But God doesn’t want us to stay there. He wants us to hear his creative and life-giving Word and Spirit. He wants us to let him do something new in our lives.
God wants to do something new with you, his people, the church. But it will be new, it won’t look the same. Jesus’ resurrected body was different from his previous one — he could still eat, but also walk through walls! As we go forward, the church is going to have think and act in new ways. We will have to think small. As we rapidly respond to the changes around us, each person is going to have to use their own initiative and imagination. You will be called to care for each other, and those around you in the community, in new ways. This crisis will test your faith, if not directly, then at least through others around you who suffer. So you will have to take responsibility for hearing God’s Word to grow and be strengthened in faith. But hope in God’s Word is never misplaced. His Word is living and active, ready and powerful to resurrect this pile of dry bones.
May God, your Lord and King, breathe his breath of life into you, into our world, into the church. May you continue to hear his Word, and be ready to follow the new direction as his Spirit blows. Amen.
