Death and Breath and Life

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I 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.

This passage is a vision that the prophet Ezekiel had of a battlefield in a valley.   It is possible, and many believe, that this vision was based on a real life experience. It is a vision that flows from what he and his people had experienced as they were marched out of Jerusalem and into exile.[1] Ezekiel was a temple priest whose job description changed dramatically when Israel was crushed by Babylon. Rather than performing religious rituals in the expansive, prestigious, and safe confines of the Temple, Ezekiel was now priest to a defeated people living in exile. It is therapeutic for those who survive traumatic events to talk about what they have been through, to draw pictures of what they have seen and experienced. Child soldiers who have been rescued from that brutal life even play-act what they have experienced as a way to process it all and to move toward healing. Maybe that is what is happening here.

The dry bones in this battlefield in the valley are the remnants of war. Israel was the losing side of this battle and this war, and their veterans were left . . . dishonored . . . .unburied . . . on the battlefield in the valley of dry bones.

This is a vision of all hope being lost. Israel sees itself in those dry bones of their fathers and brothers and uncles. They see themselves as dead, lifeless, and hopeless. And this is the vision that their priest and prophet, Ezekiel, has, in the midst of their hopelessness.

4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together,

The voice of God comes into those dry bones. The breath of God. The wind of God. The Spirit of God. The word is used 10 times in this passage. The same Hebrew word ruah. Twice it is translated as Spirit, 7 times it is translated as breath, and once as wind. It is a rich Hebrew word, as Bible scholar John Bernard Taylor says,

“no English translation can do justice to its variety of meaning . . . At its’ root, ruah denotes the sense of ‘air in motion’, i.e. wind or breath. This can extend from a gentle breeze to a stormy wind, or from a breath that is breathed to a raging passion. It comes to mean both a human spirit, or disposition, and also emotional qualities like vigor, courage, impatience, and ecstasy. It covers not only a person’s vital breath, given at birth and leaving their body in a dying gasp, but also the Spirit of God who imparts breath. Such is the rich variety of the word used here by Ezekiel.”[2]

The ruah of God. This is the voice of God that called creation into being. It is the spirit of God that hovered over the waters and separated the land from the sea. It is the breath of God that gave life to humankind in the Garden. The ruah of God comes from the 4 winds, the 4 corners of the earth. It is the global, universal power coming into the particular. And here it enters the battlefield in that valley of very dry bones.

The battlefield. Today we are celebrating the rare confluence of Pentecost and Memorial Day weekend. The joy and miracle of God’s Spirit giving birth to the Christian Church and the honoring of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice on battlefields. We end up with the Old Testament passage where these 2 intersect. The Spirit of God comes to a battlefield where many have given the ultimate sacrifice. What does it mean for the Spirit of God to enter the remnants of a battlefield? The battlefield is the place of human brokenness in its most tangible form. When conflict escalates to the point of violence between nations. When groups of people seek to destroy each other, to end the breath of the other. It is the most visible and tangible form of our brokenness. War is noble and it is tragic. It is noble to sacrifice oneself on behalf of others, on behalf of country or tribe. It is tragic that this is what people do to one another, that we find no alternative outside of destroying one another. No one knows this more clearly than our veterans of war.   And this is what the Spirit of God enters into. The dry bones of a tragic battle. There were many bones and they were very dry, as Ezekiel tells us. This was a big and a deadly battle. A Gettysburg, Normandy, Saigon, Fallujah.

Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’  12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.

O my people. They say that our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. O my people. God loves people. God’s people, you and me and all people, God meets us in the midst of our hopelessness. Whether it is;

the battlefields between nations,

or the battles within our nation,

the battlefield between cancer cells and chemotherapy,

maybe the battle in your own family that brings pain to all involved,

or the battle within yourself that eats away at you.

Battlefields come in all sizes and manifestations. The dry bones of hopelessness are all around us and within us.

Yet Ezekiel tells his forlorn people, and he tells us that the ruah of God speaks to those dry bones, and brings resurrection . . . God knits those bones back together and adds muscle and flesh and tendons, and God breathes life and strength and vigor into our brokenness with the same Spirit-wind that called our world into being. God’s breath brings life where there is death. God brings hope where there is despair. There is nothing that is outside of God’s loving reach, O my people.

This vision of Ezekiel testifies that God is life and there is no depth where that life cannot reach. We see the ruah of God, the Holy Spirit, continue to bring life to our world. That breath entered the body of our crucified Lord, Jesus Christ, who had laid himself on the crucible of our battlefields, sacrificing himself to the depth of our despair. Jesus’ resurrected life testifies to the power of God. And that same Spirit entered the mouths of the disciples at the Festival of Pentecost. Peter, who a few weeks earlier had been afraid to admit that he knew Jesus to the woman who asked him. He was the first to stand by the power of that Spirit of God, and speak to the crowd on that Holy Day. The church was born on that day and called to the Spirit-led mission of bringing life where there is death, believing in faith that the dry bones will stand up and walk again, no matter how dry they are and how numerous the bones are. We have been doing that for 2000 years, so far. This church family here does that.

We are part of that life-giving work. When death comes, we celebrate the life as we grieve together. We give help where it is needed. This past week our Deacons Fund paid a vital bill for someone in desperate need. Many of our members volunteered at local schools and service agencies, as they do every week. Others offered a listening ear, a word of comfort to a neighbor, a friend, a colleague, or a stranger. Our Village Support team is deeply engaged in helping a family, Christina and Victor, move from shelter living into an apartment and toward self-sufficiency. Today’s Pentecost Offering will help those in desperate need, including important scholarships for those at Stephens’ Creek Crossing who are bettering themselves through education. And that is but a taste of what happens in this Spirit-led family of Christ.

We are called to the Spirit-led mission of bringing life where there is death, believing in faith that dry bones will stand up and walk again, and we do it in the hope that God will one day restore all of creation. As a later prophet named John proclaims,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

God will dwell with them;

They will be his peoples,

And God himself will be with them;

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

For the first things have passed away.”

– Revelation 21:3-4