Sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14, for the 2nd Sunday of Easter (1 Yr lectionary), "God of the Living"
Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia! Amen. The beloved old Lenten hymn,
“Go to Dark Gethsemane” shifts from the darkness of the crucifixion of Jesus,
to His Easter resurrection in the final verse: “Early hasten to the tomb where they lay His breathless clay; all is
solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away? Christ is ris’n! He meets our eyes.
Savior teach us so to rise.” That poetic phrase, “His breathless clay” refers to the dead, lifeless body of Jesus,
buried in the tomb. But it also reminds us of God creating Adam from the
“breathless clay” of the earth, when God created the body of Adam from the dust
of the earth, and then breathed into Adam the “breath” or spirit of life (Genesis
2:7). Adam, the valley of dry bones, and Jesus’ resurrection all in turn show
who is the God of the Living. Who has power to make breathless clay breathe
life again. Death could not hold Jesus any more. The breath or spirit of life
returned to Him, and He rose, never to die again!
Ezekiel’s sees a grim sight: a great
valley filled with scattered dry bones. Probably a dead army, after some
horrible battle—as he calls them “these
slain,” and later a great army after they are raised. In this scene of defilement
and uncleanness God asks Ezekiel, “Can
these bones live?” Ezekiel wisely answers, “O Lord God, you know.” In a few verses, we learn that these bones
represent the “whole house of Israel”
in their hopelessness and discouragement. Discouraged about what? The whole
book of Ezekiel is about the exile of Judah. In the first chapter, Ezekiel is
already 5 years into life as an exile in Babylon. By chapter 33, Jerusalem had fallen
to the relentless assault of the Babylonian armies—now 12 years into Ezekiel’s
time in exile. Like a sickening free-fall into darkness, and the sudden “thud”
of hitting rock bottom, God asks Israel in Ezekiel 33, “Thus you have said, ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon
us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’” Sounds a bit
like our reading from ch. 37. Dried up and without hope. In ch. 33 God answers,
“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have
no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way
and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O
house of Israel?”
Chapters 33 and 37 share the heart of
God. God does not want our despair and death. He does not want us rotting away
in our sins, thinking that there is no way to live. He does not delight in
wicked people dying in their evil ways or for His people to live in
hopelessness and despair. No! God wants life! “He is not God of the dead, but of the Living!” (Matthew 22:32b). So
God calls the wicked to turn back to Him, to repent.
So according to Ezekiel 37:11, these
bones “are the whole house of Israel.
Behold they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed
cut off.” The enormous scene of physical death in the valley of dry bones
is a picture of their spiritual death and despair. As exiles in a foreign land,
under foreign gods and under rulers who had devastated and destroyed your
homeland such despair is no surprise. But God shows by this picture of physical
resurrection from the dead, that He commands power over life and death—and if
raising dry bones to living people is no problem for Him, then those defeated
exiles can still hope in the Lord for life and restoration. In a little more
than a generation or so, they would be returning home to Israel, as God
promised.
It’s curious, that Ezekiel first
prophesies to ‘dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones’ and they come rattling
together, and flesh and skin grows back on them, and they transform into
lifeless bodies. All because these bones “hear
the word of the Lord.” But they are still lifeless, there is no breath in
them. Then a second time, God tells Ezekiel again to prophesy, but this time,
instead of addressing the bones, he addresses, in Hebrew, the ruach. Ruach is used 10 different times in this passage, just like “bones”
is used 10 times. Ruach can mean
spirit, wind, or breath. So Ezekiel prophesies to the ruach and the four winds of the earth blow on these bodies, and the
breath of life comes into them, and they stand up alive—an exceedingly great
army! Amazing! It’s like the creation of Adam times 10,000! Adam’s breathless
clay, the shape of his body with all the bones, tendons, ligaments, flesh and
skin, lay on the earth after God had created him—and then God breathed His ruach into Adam, and he stood up and
became a living being! The parallel is obvious, but what does it all tell us?
It tells us again, that He is not God of the dead, but of the
Living! Only God can raise the dead. Only God can breathe His spirit and
life into those whose bones are dried up and their hope is gone. And God did it
again on Easter morning, when all hope had gone, just as He did it 5 or 6
hundred years before, in Ezekiel’s generation, when the downtrodden exiles came
home to the land of Israel. Their homecoming taught them what God said: “I will open your graves and raise you from
your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you
shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your
graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live,
and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord;
I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord. (Ezek. 37:12-14)” God is in charge, and when He speaks,
He does what He says.
God’s
Word
draws the bones together, and God’s Word sends the “breath” or ruach to stir and awaken life, where
none seemed possible. Whether what Ezekiel saw was a literal raising of an army
of dead people, who reentered biological life on this planet, or whether it was
simply a visionary experience, we are not clearly told. But the clear point of
the vision is that God does indeed have the power to make this happen. It’s
God’s Spirit that breathes in the Word of God, and calls people up out of their
graves. God’s Word and Spirit are intimately bound together and when God’s Word
goes out today, His Spirit moves in and with it. Can these bones live? O Lord God, you know. And now we know
too—never doubt that with God, all things are possible. Jesus walked out of His
open grave, and He has opened our graves also! We may go into our graves, at
the end of our biological life—but He has opened them, so there is a way out of them! And the life that God gives
us, out of our graves, will be no different than the physical, fleshly
resurrection of Jesus. As 1 Corinthians 15:49 tells us—we will bear the image
of the man of heaven—Jesus. Our mortal body will put on immortality (15:54).
Of course we don’t face an “exile” quite
like the house of Israel, in captivity with a shattered homeland. But we are
away from our true homeland. Our
citizenship is not on earth, but in heaven. So we are in a “foreign land” in a
spiritual sense. This week I read an article that pointed out an obvious truth
that many Christians don’t like to accept—that in today’s society and culture,
to be a Christian is a mark of “low-status.” Even while Christians may
theoretically be in the majority, to hold to the beliefs of the Bible is
something that will get you ridiculed and mocked. One student at an Ivy League
school reflected that many people look down on those who are religious as “peculiarly
bad, dangerous, or silly.” Of course, those attitudes toward people of faith
are as old as the Old Testament, and the invading kings who mocked the
Israelites’ trust in God, or Goliath mocking David for the same, or at the
death of Jesus, those who mocked Him on the cross, saying “He trusts in God! Let God deliver Him now, if He desires Him. For He
said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matt. 27:43).
Mockery of faith in God is ancient and
modern. It’s nothing new or unique to our times. But it’s common in “spiritual
exile” where we lack earthly power, size, authority, or impressiveness. Jesus
responded to mockery with silence and forgiveness. But then the biggest
“comeback” to that mockery, was when He rose from death, and walked out of the
empty tomb. God delivered Him after all! But not before Jesus had delivered us
from our sins. Not before Jesus had dragged down the whole towering fortress of
sin, death, and fear to the grave. Not before Jesus had breached the gates of
hell and thrown down the power of Satan, and showed that He is the “stronger
man.”
The same Lord who called Israel out of
their graves and brought Ezekiel’s exiles home, is the same Lord who calls us
today. Same as then—when the Lord speaks, He will do it. Pastors preach so that
God’s Word—His speech, gets out to the lowly, the despised, the down-trodden,
and the fallen. And where God’s Word goes out, so also goes the Spirit of God,
His ruach, to call us to repentance,
to life, and to hope. For all who say “we
are rotting away in our sins”—the call is to repentance and turn to the
Lord. For all who say “our bones are
dried up and our hope is lost, we are indeed cut off”—the Lord calls us to
rise up from our graves and He pours out His Spirit into us today. God is no
less generous with His Spirit today. Jesus said we can be certain that God the
Father will “give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask him.” (Luke 11:13).
Whether we are in spiritual despair and
hopeless in life, or literally lying dead and moldering in our graves, only God
is able to “make these bones live.” We should never look at ourselves, as a
church, or as individuals, and fear that we cannot live. For the power is not
ours, but God’s. For we worship the God, not of the dead, but of the Living! Only
His Spirit can breathe life back into us, and show that He is in control of
everything. It takes faith to trust in God, and not know when He will give
relief—whether in this life, or only in the next. But we can be sure that we
are not forgotten, and that God does not desire death or despair, but life and
hope. And God is not limited by physical death, from keeping our hope alive. So
let those dry bones hear again this Word of the Lord: Christ is Risen! He is Risen
Indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
Sermon Talking Points
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- The hymn Go
to Dark Gethsemane (LSB 436) talks about the “breathless clay” of
Jesus. What does this mean, and how does this image relate to Ezekiel 37,
and Genesis 2:7?
- What was going on with Israel, during the time
Ezekiel prophesied? Ezekiel 1:1; 33:21. How does that relate to the way
that the Israelites felt? Ezekiel 37:11; cf. 33:10.
- In two stages—what power 1) stirs the bones to
connect together, and cover with flesh; and then 2) causes life to return
to these bodies? 37:4, 9
- How do passages like Ezekiel 33:11 and 37:12-14
show the heart of God? What kind of God is He? Matthew 22:32. Over which
type of problem does God have control—physical death, or spiritual
discouragement?
- The Hebrew word ruach, like the Greek word pneuma,
both can mean “spirit”, “breath”, or “wind.” When Ezekiel prophesies to
the “breath” or “wind” and it fills the bodies, how is this again parallel
to Genesis 2:7, and also suggestive of Jesus’ own rising from His grave?
- What kind of resurrection do we look forward
to? 1 Corinthians 15:49, 54. Whose body and resurrection is a “template”
for ours?
- What sort of mockery and ridicule “goes with
the territory” of being a Christian? How did Jesus respond to mockery?
What do “exiles” remember when they are mocked, and have little or no
earthly power?
- Why can we be confident that God still sends
His Ruach or Spirit out to make
us alive and viable today? Luke 11:13
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