Dry Bones and Singing Stones
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Luke 19:29-40
Palm Sunday
March 20, 2005
Jeb was one of the leading citizens of Ottumwa, Iowa. He was the kind of guy that you could count on, no matter what. He was a deacon in his church. Every time the doors were open, he was there. He had served as Chairperson of the Trustees, head usher, and Church Council Chair. He taught the Jr. High Sunday School class.
Every year, the women of the church had a fall bazaar and apple dumpling sale. He was always there, pealing apples, mixing dough, selling the sweet pastries. They made him an honorary member of the women’s group, complete with lapel pin.
If you needed something, Jeb was always there. He was quick to pull a ten dollar bill out of his pocket to give to a transient who needed gas. He helped mow lawns and rake leaves for some widows in town. He coached little league baseball. He was the announcer at High School basketball games. He built houses with Habitat for Humanity. He took eye glasses from the local Lions Club down to Haiti for poverty-stricken people there.
He was also one of the most successful farmers in the tri-county region. In addition to running a thousand head of hogs, he farmed 2,500 acres of rolling prairie that produced some of the finest corn and wheat in the country. He had a degree from Purdue in Agricultural Economics and had become one of the wealthiest farmers around.
He and his wife of 40 years had been blessed with ten children…seven sons and three daughters. They had all grown to be fine young adults. Jeb made it a habit to pray for each one individually during his morning devotions, asking God to bless and prosper them.
Late one Monday night, Jeb got a call from the sheriff. It seems as though all of his children had been at the home of the oldest to have dinner and watch football. A gang of young toughs from Des Moines had come through town, and for some reason, picked that particular house to rob. In the process, they had shot and killed all ten of Jeb’s children.
Sometime during the early morning hours following the funeral, lightening struck one of his barns. Hogs have a tendency, when they are scared, to group together as tightly as they can. That is what they did when the barn began to burn. Instead of running away from the flames, they huddled together…and most of them perished.
Just as he was trying to make sense of all of this tragedy, he began to feel some heaviness in his chest. Going to the doctor, he was put through a whole battery of tests. When the results came back, he was shocked to learn that he had lung cancer.
And he cried out to God in his loneliness, anger, grief, and despair. He told God that he couldn’t take it anymore. He said that he wanted to die and to be put out of his misery. He couldn’t understand how one man could be expected to persevere through all of this misfortune. He wished that he had never been born. Is there any among us who is not able to feel his pain, see his despair, and understand the terrible anguish of his life?
That was a parable. Perhaps you will recognize a parallel to this parable if you are familiar with the biblical character of Job, who lost his children, his flocks, his health…and cried out to God to just let him die. Job had everything going for him - family, friends, wealth, health - only to have them all stripped from him in moments of horror and shock. In the outer darkness of his desolation, Job lashed out at God, wanting to know why he was ever born in the first place. He lamented that he didn’t die at birth. He bemoaned the fact of his life and wished only for death.
Perhaps you have not experienced such Job-like struggles in your own life. But I bet, if you search the deep recesses of your memory, you will be able to bring to mind someone you have known who has passed through those waters. Maybe you are indeed one of those who have experienced the throes of disease, sorrow, and death. Perhaps you are one of those who know first-hand what it is like to suffer. Perhaps you are one of those who understands Job more than as just a story in the Bible. Perhaps this very morning, you are one of those who are trying to make sense out of your faith; trying to make sense out of a life that has gone wrong; trying to make sense out of disaster; trying to find answers to seemingly unanswerable questions.
Those were the exact same questions that were being asked by Ezekiel’s people, the Israelites, just a few years after the beginning of the 6th century B.C. They couldn’t understand why calamity had come upon them. They had once been a prosperous people. They had once been a faithful people. They had once been a people who had served as examples of piety and righteousness to their neighbors. They had once lived out their status as God’s chosen with vibrant expectation. They had once been blessed beyond belief.
But something happened. Their civilization lost its luster. Their religious faith tarnished in the wake of wicked kings and corrupt priests. Their once glorious nation had been ground under the heel of a mightier foe. They had fought against a great enemy and lost.
We are familiar with one despot of Baghdad. The United States has gone to war to remove him from power. Twenty six centuries ago, that area gave rise to the Babylonians, a fierce people who, much like the Saddam Hussein regime, struck fear into the hearts of their enemies. They conquered Judah, destroyed Jerusalem, and took the Israelites into captivity. Ezekiel the prophet was one who was taken.
As he sat out his captivity over there in Babylon, he had a vision of his once mighty and righteous nation. In his vision, the nation was reduced to bones. In his vision, he was transported to a valley…and it was full of dry bones. Everywhere he looked, there were bones, bleaching in the hot sun. Arms, legs, ribs, skulls, hands, and feet…all without their flesh; dry and dusty. A better vision of his people and the nation of Israel could scarcely be imagined. The nation had been defeated. It seemed as though all had been lost.
In his vision, the Lord said, “Can these bones live?” In other words, is there any life left in the people? Is there any hope for tomorrow? Is there anything that can point to a restored future?
I was searching some sermon resources on the internet and came across this description.
The vision of the valley of bones is frightful. It is a vision of our death and the grave…We want to turn and look away, but there are dry bones all around us. Skeletons in our closet. Bones in our basement. Everywhere we turn, there are more dry bones. Marriages fail. Relationships are broken. Violence and death saturate the nightly news and our entertainment.
We feel it in our bones. Anger and aggression and anxiety eat away at us. They dry us out. Our lives become a valley of dry, dusty bones baked under the heat of God’s Law…
There is a dryness deep down in our bones. A dryness that won’t go away. A thirst that cannot be quenched. Some try sipping from false streams, the polluted rivers of power, possessions, sex, drugs, alcohol, music, religion, hobbies. Nothing we reach for, nothing within our grasp, can touch this eternal thirst. Who will preach to our bones? Who will breathe life into them. Can these dry, dead, lifeless bones of ours rise to Life? (http://www. homileticsonline.com sermon title, “Saving the Beetle Cat” Ezekiel 37:1-14. 3/21/1999. accessed on 11/24/04)
The Lord asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” Can this nation come back to life? Can good times be restored?
And so we find ourselves here together on Palm Sunday, 2005. We look around at events, attitudes, and circumstances that remind us of the plight of our ancestors. It is probably not too far-fetched to believe that there are many of us who are trying to make sense out of lives that don’t make too much sense. Here is my list of stuff with which we have to contend. I’m sure you have your own list, but here is mine.
Disease and death touch us all. There is not one of us who has not been affected by the sufferings of those whom we care about. Then too, we have our own medical emergencies and maladies with which to contend. We worry about the skyrocketing costs of health care and prescription drug costs.
We persist in a war in a far-away land that continues to kill and maim, not just young American men and women, but Iraqi men, women, and children as well. Patriotic and well-meaning citizens fall on both sides of the issue of the necessity of the war. The political scenery in Washington D.C., despite the intentions of some to tone down the dialogue, to cooperate, to find consensus, to unite rather than divide, continues to be marked by loud fractious back-biting, name-calling, and character assassination. Caught in the middle of it all are plain, ordinary American citizens who feel they are overtaxed and underrepresented.
The cultural landscape is littered with the corpses of once-firmly-held assumptions about morality and decency. It seems that sometimes we really don’t know who to blame anymore for the decline in principled existence. Do we blame Hollywood? Do we blame the news media? Do we blame the public schools? Do we blame radical feminists or homosexuals? Are we afraid of the consequences of accepting some of the blame ourselves?
We may feel as though we are in exile…as deep and divisive and frightening as that exile experiences by Ezekiel’s people…as dark and foreboding as Israel under first century Roman occupation.
There are days when we wonder if our bones can ever live. It is on our bad days when we ask those questions:
Can these bones live?
Can triumph reign in the midst of terror?
Can a poor baby born in a barn become a king?
Can these rocks cry out?
Can the tomb give up its victim?
Can we be saved?
You may think that these are bad days, but remember, today is the day when Jesus rode triumphantly down the mountain into Jerusalem. It is the day that he confounded his critics. It is the day when he met his accusers head on. It is the day when he refused to be cowered by outside events.
This is a good day because today we learn the truth…Yes, these bones can live. Yes, these bones will live. In fact, the outside world can do nothing about it. Even if governments or organizations or institutions attempt to silence the voice of God, it will be to no avail because even the rocks will cry out. We have that straight from the mouth of Jesus.
Let me tell you something about Evil, the Devil, Satan, Lucifer, or whatever you want to call that other team on the field. Let me tell you something about that other team. It hasn’t got a chance. That team is going into battle with someone who can make the rocks sing. When you go up against an opposing power that can make the rocks sing, you might as well hang up your spikes and go home. As of this point, the other team isn’t smart enough to realize that. They haven’t discovered it yet, but they will.
God is not finished with us yet. God will have his way with the world, and his way is one of peace, security, justice, and love. This is a good day which is only the precursor of an even better day next week when we will come and discover that the tomb which was supposed to put an end to Jesus once-and-for-all, came up empty.
Times may continue to confound us. They may continue to test us. We may not be yet free of the effects of the Evil One. But Jesus rode down the mountain in triumph. Ezekiel’s bones did indeed rise again. We are on God’s side and God’s side is the winning side.
So when you are stressed or confused or hurt or angry or lost or alone or afraid… remember Jesus. When you have unanswerable questions, remember Jesus. When you wonder where your strength for tomorrow will come from, remember Jesus. When you are adrift in a sea of worries, remember Jesus. This is the day when even the rocks cry out. This is a good day, a winning day, a day of victory. This is a day of Jesus.
