Ezekiel 37:1-14
Fifth Sunday in LentΒ -Β 2 April 2017
Rev. John Derme
Last Sunday I asked you about your dreams for the future. We considered what the Bible tells us about Joseph's life, and we learned about God-pleasing dreams for our own lives. One thing about dreams that we didn't mention, because it would seem rather obvious, is that you have to be alive to have hopes and dreams. If you are going to have hope for the future, you'd better get around to having it now. People can no longer hope when they are dead.
Well, nothing is more dead than dry bones. Dry bones come from a person who is not only dead now, but who has been dead for a long time. When I think of dry bones, I think of a western movie with the western tune whistling in the background. The buckaroo hero is in the desert. The scorching sun is overhead. Along with the circling vulture, he sees dry bones on the ground, which are a clue that somebody going to die. There is no life at all in dry bones. Dry bones have no hope. Yet in our First Lesson for today from Ezekiel 37, the Lord says, "Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord!"
The prophet Ezekiel records for us the vision that the Lord gave him of a valley filled with dry bones. You may not remember much about the book of Ezekiel, but if you do, I wouldn't be surprised if you are familiar with this vision. That may partially be due to the familiar song that goes, "Ezekiel connected dem dry bones, Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones, Now hear the Word of the Lord."
In this vision, the Lord set Ezekiel into the valley. As in the old western movie, it was a scene of death. I suppose a field of dry bones may seem a little less gruesome than if they were intact skeletons or dead bodies with flesh still on them. Yet either of those two possibilities would at least be signs of recent life. The bones Ezekiel saw weren't connected to each other, so they didn't even look like human bodies. The bones were dry, which means that all life was long gone. Even the bones themselves were decaying away.
In the middle of this valley, the Lord asked Ezekiel a question: "Can these bones live?" If anybody else had asked this question, the answer would be obvious: "No way!" But since it was the Lord who asked, Ezekiel was humble enough to leave the answer to him: "Lord, you alone know." The Lord answered the question by telling his prophet to prophesy to the bones, "Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. I will give you tendons, flesh, skin, and breath, and you will live!" Ezekiel did as he was commanded.
As Ezekiel spoke to the bones, he heard a noise. He heard the bones rattling. No longer were they individual bones scattered throughout the valley. Soon they were connected into skeletons. Then tendons and flesh and skin covered the bones, and they became human bodies. But they were not yet alive. So the Lord instructed Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath to come from the four winds and fill the bodies. It did, and they were alive. There was a vast army of resurrected people.
Finally, the Lord explained the meaning of this vision. The bones were Israel. The people of Israel complained, "Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off." They spoke these words during the time when Israel was in exile to foreign empires. They had rejected the Lord. They were the ones who had signed their own death sentences, and had been taken away. Now they thought they were as hopeless as dead people. So the Lord used this vision to promise them, "I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land." The Lord would raise his dead nation back to life. By his power and love he would show them who he was, and the Holy Spirit would bring them back to faith in him. The dry bones heard the Word of the Lord. While the people waited, this vision brought them hope.
Have you ever felt like you were hopeless? When you have hope for the future, it helps you to feel alive. But if you have no hope for anything good, it can make you feel almost lifeless.
By nature, we didn't just feel lifeless. Although we were physically alive, spiritually we were as dead as a pile of dry bones. When we lived according to the sinful nature, we had absolutely no hope. Even if our life seemed good on earth, we had no hope for anything good in eternity. It took the power and love of God to bring us from spiritual death to life. We had to hear the Word of the Lord and have the Holy Spirit breathe into us to raise us up.
Dear friends, the example of Israel is a warning to you and me. They had the Word of the Lord and rejected it. They had the Holy Spirit and resisted him. People who were once spiritually alive killed themselves. May we never do that! Hear the Word of the Lord! Never stop listening! Don't resist the Holy Spirit! Do not live according to the sinful nature! Without the Holy Spirit, we will be as hopeless as dry bones. If we stop hearing the Word of the Lord, our bones will decay in hell forever.
Just as the Lord promised hope for Israel, so the Holy Spirit comes through the Word of the Lord to bring hope to us! Through the gospel message in God's Word the Holy Spirit has raised us from death to life. Your resurrection occurred one day when you heard the Word, or when water attached to the Word was applied to you. As you heard that Word, there was also a rattling sound that you may not have heard. It was your dry bones coming together bone to bone. Then tendons, flesh, and skin covered them. The breath of the Holy Spirit entered you. On that day when you came to faith, you stood up alive as part of a vast army of believers. Now you have spiritual life!
But that's not all! The Lord promises you physical life, too. All of you here are physically alive now. But we realize that one day, unless the Lord returns to this world first, we will die. But even though we die physically, we will remain spiritually alive. And the Lord promises that he will raise us physically from the dead when he returns at the last day. Even if we die before that happens and our bones decay in the grave, he will open our graves and bring us up from them. Our bones will rattle together. Our tendons, flesh, and skin will cover them. Our breath will enter us. And we will stand together as a vast army of believers before the Lord on that day.
We have this certain hope of resurrection and life, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He proved it when he raised Lazarus from the dead, and he will prove it when he raises us from the dead. After Jesus raised Lazarus, the Jewish leaders began plotting hard to kill him. Next week, we will follow Jesus through his Word as he enters Jerusalem, goes to the cross, suffers, and dies. We will see that through his death, he has accomplished life for us. Today we confess the hope in the resurrection that he gives us. The Spirit has breathed that faith into us. He has given us the hope of everlasting glory. All of this is ours through faith in Jesus, who always heard the Word of the Lord and who suffered, died, and rose again to pay for our sins against it.
You have hope today, and you will always have hope, because you are alive, and you will always be alive. You will never again be just dry bones, because you have already been raised from the dead. You will be raised from the dead one more time, and you will live forever. You have the greatest hope imaginable: life that never ends with your Lord! That is because the Lord has said to us, "Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord!"