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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  1. 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?
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. 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?
  5. 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?
  6. What kind of resurrection do we look forward to? 1 Corinthians 15:49, 54. Whose body and resurrection is a “template” for ours?
  7. 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?
  8. 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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