March 17, 2002 -- FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
With the LORD there is mercy and plenteous redemption. (Ps. 130:6-7)
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Color: Purple
Title: “Hope is always the “soup of the day.”
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Verses one to ten, describe a vision. Ezekiel is taken by the divine spirit to a plane of unspecified location. On the plain dry bones are strewn about. The Lord tells Ezekiel to preach his word to the bones. First, the bones re-assembled, the thighbones connecting to the hip bones, etc, as the old song has it. The prophet had to preach again for these human-like dolls, mere counterfeits of human beings, looking marvelous but still dead. They had no “spirit,” yet. On the second try they became filled with “spirit,” and thus truly alive and human. God did this, bringing the dead, the very dead, to life. He did it through his word. He did it for no explicable reason. He just did it, gratuitously.
In verses eleven to fourteen, interpret the vision. Verse eleven, equates the dry bones with Israel and her condition after 587BC. The Babylonian conquest and subsequent transportation of the Jews to Babylon spelled the death of the nation. Israel and her individual members were now the living dead. The nation is a graveyard. Verses twelve to fourteen, tell of God’s intention to turn the graveyard into a grace-yard, restore the nation and each individual to life. This would not be mere existence, sinew, flesh, and skin, but life, spirit.
In verse twelve, I will open your graves and have you rise from them: This interprets the vision. God not only can but will give life to them once again. Death, either physical or metaphorical, does not stymie God. Death does not have the power over God it has over humans. When humans recognize God’s power and submit to it, death is trumped and victory over death is trumpeted.
And bring you back to the land of Israel: Amidst the utter despair of defeat at the hands of an unimaginably powerful human military force, there is this unarmed word from God that the people shall return to their beloved land, given them by God for no reason at all, just because God is like that. The return to the land, however, was meant by God as a signal, a sign, a symbol, for return to living fellowship with him and on his terms. This latter part they would miss or ignore or, at least, fail to put in its rightful central place.
In verse thirteen, this verse repeats the promise but leaves out the part about return to the land of Israel. It emphasizes the personal salvation God is giving to each Israelite. Salvation would rise from the ashes, like the phoenix of mythology rises from its own self-constructed funeral pyre. The Israelites did this to themselves. The Babylonians are only playing their role in God’s plan. The Israelites are suffering the consequences of their own decisions. Like the phoenix, however, they will rise again from the ashes of their own destructive sins. Unlike the phoenix, they will do so on God’s power, not by anything inherent in them. God’s spirit will come upon them and do for them what they cannot do for themselves.
In verse fourteen, I will put my spirit in you that you may live: Implied in this, of course, is that real life, fulfilling life, can come only from living according to God’s spirit, especially as expressed in the terms of the covenant, a covenant the Israelites have consistently violated, causing their death.
Sermon
The meaning of this text is clear. God has power over life and death and humans should be very careful about despair. Even though the facts of the matter call for despair, faith in God always calls for hope. True, Israel was dead as far as being a nation. True, there was no human basis for hoping that Babylon would ever weaken enough for the Israelites to do what their ancestors did when in Egypt. Or was there? Wasn’t Egypt also powerful? Yet, the people triumphed, thanks to God. Even without faith in God it is really silly to despair, since anything can happen. But with faith in God, recalling his promises, and listening to his word, there is great basis for hope. In fact, hope is always the “soup of the day.”
Now, a person without faith might be able to accept a blind person having sight restored. Such a person would say the reasons for the “miracle,” are inexplicable and leave it at that. However, even a person of faith has problems with a dead person brought back to life. Not a near-dead person, as in the case of those declared clinically dead, yet are brought back, but a really, long-time dead person, what is meant by “dry and bare bones,” in this text. Such an event taxes even faith. Yet, God can do it. Ok, we say, theoretically, God can; he can do everything. But, how about practically? Not “Can he?” but “Would he…ever?” In the gospel for today we will read of just such an even, the resuscitation of Lazarus. However, the return of the exiles from Babylon was right up there on the possibility- probability scale, with the return to life of a dead person- in Israel’s book. And that was the meaning for Israel. Christians see in this text an even deeper meaning. To them, it speaks of the resurrection, not Christ’s but theirs. It speaks not only the resurrection at the end of time, but their resurrection at the beginning of Baptism. That is when the Spirit comes upon the Christian.
The story’s two phase “return to life,” is very important to Christians. Everyone knows the difference between merely existing and actually living. Everyone knows the difference between counterfeit life, “looking marvelous,” and the real McCoy. True, God gives us the physical wherewithal- the flesh, sinews, bones, skin, etc.- to exist in the world. But, he gives us much more when he gives us his Spirit. With his Spirit we actually live, enjoy life and make a contribution while doing so. But more, we also start to live in the “next life,” the eternal realm, God’s really real reality, all the while living in this one. Of course, life in heaven is better than life on earth, but life on earth is not bad either when lived in and with his Spirit. Of course, we await the fullness of redemption, but we do not have to wait until we die before we get a taste of it. God has given us the physical body we need to exist, but he has also gives us the spirit we need to live, live in the fullest sense of that word. Spirit and word, that’s the whole key to life.
Many a pastor has felt he was preaching to dead folk, dry bones, at least, at times. And many of those same pastors have “seen,” the Spirit” take over and inject life into the most unlikely people and most despairing of circumstances. Who can turn the graveyard of our life into a grace-yard, the desert into a garden? Only the Lord or, as the text says, “that you may know that I am the Lord.” Even in this form of life, there is so much more to life than mere existence, that merely putting one foot in front of the other, than getting up in the morning, working hard, and going to bed at night, only to do it again and again. Such repetition can rob our lives of any enthusiasm for life. It is, indeed, only when we “catch the Spirit,” or, more correctly, the Spirit enraptures us, that we experience the difference between existing and living. Living is far better. Yet, we cannot live if we insist on having it our way, doing it our way, unless, of course, “our,” way coincides with “his,” way.
The “resurrected,” life begins here and now with Christ’s Spirit entering into and dwelling within us.
Not everyone who looks alive really is.
God promised to give us life, more-than-physical life, and God always delivers on his word.
God delivered himself when he became human and delivered his Spirit when he returned to heaven.
Metaphors: We all know from our grammar lessons that it is rarely a good thing to mix metaphors. We also know from our religion lessons that it is not good to mix up metaphors. Unfortunately, this metaphor- of dry bones being raised up from the grave- has gotten both mixed in with the wrong lesson and has mixed up people’s understanding of the “last day.” It should be clear from the context that this metaphor of the dead rising from the graves does not pertain to eternity, but to the here and now. In the course of religious education many people have this image in their heads that there is going to be a last chronological day in the near future, and there is, and that when the trumpet sounds, probably not, all the buried dead will rise from their individual graves and stand straight awaiting judgment. There will certainly be a final judgment what the church explains as both a particular and a general judgment. “Final,” in the sense of irrevocable and unchangeable. From the earthly point of view, that would take place at the “time,” of individual death. We will be judged as worthy of heaven or deserving of hell or a mixture of both immediately upon death. We will leave the details up to God, whom we are sure has taken care of them. From the eternal point of view, where there is no time, our own particular judgment and the judgment of all others, no matter when they lived or died, is really one “event.” Once we enter into eternity, time stops, at least for us. Unfortunately, the metaphor used in Ezekiel has been erroneously understood to coincide with what Paul says about the “last chronological day,” a “day,” described in metaphorical terms as well. No, Ezekiel’s vision pertains to life here on earth, to how God must instill his very Spirit into a person if they are to live and not merely exist. We all know from our science and, indeed, observation, that physical bodies decompose and that many bodies have been cremated, resulting in “premature decomposition.” The elements that make up our bodies have existed from the beginning of creation and continue to combine with other elements after they have unplugged from our bodies, indeed, this process goes on throughout our physical lives. So, the image of dead bodies coming out of the grave and being resuscitated does not work for bodies that never entered a grave in the first place and for those bodies so decomposed centuries old, that the elements are no longer physically there. Of course, God can do what he wants. He is God. He could make that happen. However, the question is not whether God could do it, but would God do it that way? Probably not. Certainly, we cannot point to this text to support the argument that dead bodies are going to physically come out of graves they were never in, in the first place. The point of this vision pertains to this life and the power of the resurrected Lord’s Spirit upon life here and now. It is the power and meaning of the resurrection of Jesus and those who participate in his life. Applying the lesson of this text to the final judgment and afterlife misses its main point and mixes up those who erroneously think that God is telling us something about the last day in this text. Indeed, he is telling us something about the first day, the day of our Baptism or the day we first realized that we are indeed baptized in the case of those baptized as infants. Baptism is like being raised from the dead. It is not, however, being restored to a life we once had, but being given a new life, a new dimension of and to life. That’s why the dead bones were not enough. The Spirit had to come upon them, moving the bodies from mere existence into real life. This metaphor describes Baptism and the effect the Spirit of God can and does have upon mere physical existence. Amen.
