Today’s sermon looks at two stories of resurrection. No, we’re not to Easter quite yet, but both Ezekiel’s vision of a valley of dry bones and Jesus’ miraculous raising of Lazarus give us a sort of sneak peek of what’s coming.
This week’s question, “Can these bones live?” comes from the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of a field of death, and asks whether God can work even when it seems life and hope are gone. In the Gospel reading from John 11, Jesus demonstrates that even death doesn’t end God’s work by calling Lazarus out from the tomb and restoring him to life. And of course, in a few weeks, we’ll see the ultimate proof of God’s power over death as Jesus himself is raised from the dead on Easter morning.
Today’s Scripture readings are Ezekiel 37:1-14 and John 11:1-45, and this sermon is heavily influenced by our Seeking Lenten theme from A Sanctified Art as well as one of my all-time favorite sermons, Speak Life.
Here’s the worship livestream from Living Hope and the sermon audio from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Do any of you enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction? Things like The Hunger Games, or The Day after Tomorrow, or zombie stories?
Some people really get into literature or movies where everything has fallen apart, where society has broken down, maybe after a plague or a war, and people are fighting against all the odds in a hostile world, or people are coming together to forge a new society out of the ruins.
It’s kind of fun to imagine, to wonder how you’d do in a similar situation. At least, it’s fun as long as it’s only fiction.
Imagine for a moment what it would feel like if it were reality. Imagine if all the institutions we take for granted—all the governments, churches, grocery stores, banks—were all wiped out. Maybe banks falling apart isn’t so hard to imagine right now…
But then imagine if on top of all that, an enemy army forcibly relocated you to a different land. Your whole life would feel like it had fallen apart.
That’s what it must have felt like for the Jewish people at the time the prophet Ezekiel was writing.
Ezekiel isn’t someone we hear from often, but he’s an important figure who lived during the Babylonian exile, right around 600 years before Jesus. This was not a good time to be alive as a Jew.
The kingdom of Israel has fallen, the people have been taken away from their land by the Babylonian army. God’s temple has been destroyed and looted, the holy city of Jerusalem has been plundered. This is about as dark as it gets. It looks like the end of Israel’s story, the end of God’s story. It looks hopeless.
Maybe that’s not as hard to relate to right now as we wish it was. In a commentary for this week, Pastor Danielle Schroyer writes, “To be quite honest, very few things feel more ridiculous than hope these days.
We’re facing a world of climate emergency, war, a growing immigration crisis, a terrifying surge in hate groups, rising global fascism, technological overload, and, in case we forget, an ongoing pandemic. If fear were an energy source, we could all power our homes and cars for a year.”
I would add to her list that church attendance across the country fell significantly during the pandemic, and by most measures, doesn’t seem to be recovering.
Congregations are growing older, inflation makes everything cost more, lots of things seem precarious.
I’m not at all saying we’re as bad off as the Israelites in Ezekiel’s time, but we can relate.
And in this gloomy, fearful time, God sends the prophet Ezekiel a vision. Ezekiel sees a valley of dry bones, representing what’s left of Israel, God’s chosen people. Basically, there’s nothing left. Their kingdom is destroyed, their whole way of life is dead. With the temple gone, destroyed by their enemies, they’re afraid even God is dead.
I don’t know if you caught it as you were listening, but when God shows Ezekiel this valley of bones, it takes a while. Verse 2 says “He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.”
There’s no blood or marrow left, no life. Just a valley of death. It’s like something out of a horror movie, or some bleak sci-fi scene, and God makes Ezekiel look at it. That had to be a painful experience, to dwell in the suffering, to realize the hopelessness.
Finally, God starts talking to Ezekiel, asking, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
That’s our question for this week: “Can these bones live?” Or is it too late? Can anything come out of death? Is it too late even for God? Remember, these aren’t even bodies, just bones.
Ezekiel is not sure he sees any potential here, not really sure where God’s going with this, so he takes the safe route and says, “O Lord God, you know.” Great, non-committal answer. Seeing potential in death is hard!
And then God starts to work. God starts telling Ezekiel what to say to the dry bones, and I think that’s the most interesting part of the story. God doesn’t say to Ezekiel, “Hey you of little faith, watch this!”
Instead, God instructs Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” God is going to bring life, and Ezekiel gets to announce it. God is going to do a miracle, and Ezekiel gets to participate.
The new life for these bones comes from the breath of God, but Ezekiel gets to be part of it.
I don’t know if he’s quite sure about all this, but Ezekiel does as he’s told. He speaks to the bones as commanded, he speaks to the winds, and God raises up the bones into living people.
The message to the people of Israel is clear. “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
I love this story for two reasons. First, it’s incredibly encouraging to hear about God bringing life out of death. No matter how dim the future looks, God can still make a way forward.
I’m not going to say much about the familiar story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but I will point out this miracle is as much about Jesus’ identity as it is about Lazarus.
This miracle of raising Lazarus is the turning point in John’s gospel, because it finally establishes for the people that Jesus is God. Raising the dead is something only God can do. Only God can create life out of death.
There’s the strange bit in this story where Jesus gets word that his good friend Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, is very sick, and then he waits two days before leaving for Bethany, a two day journey. I don’t know why Jesus waits before going, and I don’t particularly like it. Definitely one of the questions on my list to ask when I get to heaven.
But a result of Jesus’ delay is that Lazarus has been dead for four days. He’s really dead. In fact, the Jewish standard for being really, really sure someone is absolutely, completely dead is only three days. There’s no mostly dead, still slightly alive, Princess Bride thing going on here.
The man is decomposing. His body stinks. Any normal faith healer or miracle worker would look at the tomb, smell the decomposing body, and give up.
But it isn’t too late for Jesus. He does something only God can do. He tells Lazarus to come out of the tomb, and Lazarus comes out!
If you keep reading in John, this is the turning point where the religious and political leaders realize they need to do something about Jesus. They could ignore his other miracles, but you can’t ignore someone being raised from the dead. From then on, they began plotting to kill him.
From here, everything leads to the cross and Jesus’ death. Of course, after he dies, he himself will rise from the dead, which is the final, ultimate proof of his identity.
So back to Ezekiel, one of the parts I love is this idea about God seeing potential for life even in what looks like only death.
The other part I love is Ezekiel’s role, how he gets to participate. Ezekiel gets to be the one to tell the dry bones to live. He gets to be the one to proclaim hope, to declare good news of life. This is what you and I get to do as Christians.
We get to look at this broken world, and say, “There is hope.” Our job is to declare good news, to speak God’s love. And it’s not just empty words; telling people “Don’t worry about your situation because God loves you so your suffering doesn’t matter.”
The apostle James says something about that kind of proclamation, talking about the uselessness of faith that’s only words without deeds.
No, the good news we proclaim is accompanied by action. God is at work through us. God uses whatever we have to offer to build the kingdom, to breathe life into dead bones. Our words and actions as followers of Jesus speak life.
Today’s question asks if we believe this is possible. Can these bones live? Can we believe there is hope for this world through Jesus? Can we believe God is not done with us, that there is hope even for you and me?
In the chapter before the Lazarus story, in John 10:10, Jesus says “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” If there’s one thing we have as Christians to say to the world, it’s the message that real life, abundant life, life starting now and continuing for eternity is found in Jesus Christ.
God is in the business of life, creating it, restoring it, speaking it. Life is what God does, whether it’s for the whole world at creation, or a newborn baby, or into hopeless situations, valleys of dry bones or four day old tombs.
Our job, our calling from God is to speak life, to share the good news of what God is doing in our own lives and in the world.
God told Ezekiel to speak life so the dry bones could live.
In the Lazarus story, when Lazarus comes out of the tomb, Jesus tells the people standing there, probably in shock at what’s happening, to step up, to get involved, to participate in God’s work. He says, “Unbind him, and let him go.” We get to be a part of God’s work.
Will you join in what God is doing?
Will you proclaim life and hope to the world? Will you believe dry bones can live?
May God use you this week to speak life to those around you, and may you hear God speaking life to you.
Amen.