Try Dry Bones (May 19, 2024) Ezekiel 37.1-14

It is May and to the church that can mean only one thing: Pentecost is upon us. Pentecost, where we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church in fire and wind. Pentecost, where the color red is in the sanctuary, and we have banners and streamers floating to remember that day. But what is Pentecost and what if there is so much more to it?

Pentecost was a celebration of the time after the giving of the law to the people of Israel from God. It was a time of celebration as it occurred after Passover. For the Church though it is something different. There would have been the celebrations that the first Christians would have taken part in as they were primarily Jews. They knew what the time meant. But they were also waiting. They were waiting for the return of Jesus or awaiting something else that they could not be able to describe. And when that something occurred, they were probably as surprised as everyone else by it. They heard and felt the power of the Holy Spirit and knew that something was happening that they would only be able to account to God working. And so, we remember that day, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

As it is Pentecost, there is usually a sermon preached from Acts 2 that describes what was going on and calls Christians to remember that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world. But what if there are other passages in the Bible that show that God is at work making new and restoring? That is a question I want to address today.

It is not often that one takes a text from the First Testament these days, unless one is teaching about Abraham, Jacob, or David. These are the big three that people think of when they think of the First Testament. It is also true that people think that there is not much spiritually enriching material in the First Testament (if you wish to hear a refutation of this notion, come to Bible Study on Wednesday and find out). But there is much that is spiritually enriching in the First Testament and much of it is found in the Prophets. The Prophets are not so much future tellers but rather voices of God coming to tell their contemporaries what God sees and wants done in the present time. They are telling the people what is happening in the here and now and then will they tell what will happen if there is no change in lives of the people.

Ezekiel was one of those prophets. He lived and proclaimed in the time of the Exile of the nation of Judah. He was one of those taken in the first wave of the Exile, the one where all the cream of society was taken leaving only the poor in the land to be governed over by a governor appointed by the victorious Babylonians. So, he is to be seen as one who has a fairly high status among those in the land of Babylon.

And God brings a message for him to relate to those in Exile. They are there because of their actions. They wantonly turned from the God of their ancestors, the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt, the God who cared for them and delivered them when they called out for deliverance. This was the God whom they abandoned to follow other gods, many of their own making, and even the imaginings of what their God should be. They believed that God would keep them safe if they kept up the sacrifices at the Temple and that nothing would happen to them if they kept the Temple. But Ezekiel brings a message that says “When you call upon God and ask why this happened to you, look to yourselves and you will find the answer. You did this and you alone. God says, ‘You want idolatry? I will give you idolatry to the nth degree.’” And so, God did by sending them to Babylon, a land full of gods, many of whom were cruel and vicious unlike the God of Israel who provided and cared for the people and the land. And Ezekiel was God’s messenger. I’m sure that when he spoke the people were heartsick to hear his words.

And now God has a message, a vision, for Ezekiel to see and hear. I am sure Ezekiel would not be too keen on another vision as those he had before were not that edifying. But the spirit of the Lord takes him to a valley or a plain. There he is set down in the middle of this place and it is full of bones. Now, to us this might not seem like a big deal aside from the creepiness of the situation. But to Ezekiel this was the ultimate in uncleanness. He was not supposed to touch a dead body and by extension bones of those who were dead and remain clean. But God set him down there and makes him walk all around the valley. This would be a valley/plain where possibly a battle took place, and the bones are the remains of those who were killed and left to rot and be eaten by carrion animals. It was not a nice place.

And the bones are dry. Bones that are “fresh” still have some moisture in them. The marrow and the water are still there from when there was life. On the other hand, dry bones are bones that lay in the sun for a long, long time. They usually are bleached and there is no chance that there is any life left in them. So, it was with the bones that Ezekiel is seeing.

Then God asks a perplexing question: “Mortal, can these bones live?”[1] What kind of question is that? These bones are as we say, “bone dry.” There is no life left in them.

Ezekiel answers with a non-answer, “Only you know that, Lord.” If we knew the tone of Ezekiel’s voice when he said this, we would have a better understanding of his answer. Does he answer in a confident tone or one of questioning? I believe that Ezekiel is throwing the ball back into God’s court. He is puzzled by the question and makes it clear that he does not believe that these bones can live. Ezekiel is showing that the prophets were at many times just like us. They knew God could and would do whatever God wanted and yet they fell into human thinking and limitations. Ezekiel knows that these bones cannot and will not live. There is no way to see this situation.

But God says “Prophesy to these bones…”[2]Ezekiel is told to do what he is doing with the people who are in exile: proclaim the word of the Lord. That word is to tell the bones that God will put breath in them, that they will have sinews, flesh, and skin. That they will live again.

Ezekiel, probably with some hesitation, begins to speak what God wants spoken. Suddenly, there is a sound. The NRSV and other translations say rattling or rustling. That is a bit too tame for what is happening. The Hebrew means a din, an earthquake, a quaking as the CEB has it. This would not be a gentle rattling but a raucous noise that one covers their ears when it is heard. It would be akin to the powerful wind on the day of Pentecost. It is telling Ezekiel that something BIG is happening.

What is happening is what God said would happen. The bones are coming together, sinew and flesh are now on the bones and skin is covering them. But there is no breath, no ruah from God to animate the bodies. They are zombified.

Then God tells Ezekiel to call the breath from the four winds to come and breathe upon those in the valley. The breath comes and the slain become alive, just as Adam did when God breathed breath into him in Genesis 2. Now there is a whole multitude in the valley, ones who are living where before there were only dry bones.

Then God tells Ezekiel that these bones are the people of Israel. They have said, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’[3] They feel and believe that they are as good as dead. They are without any hope. The word “lost” can also be translated as “perished.” What is lost can sometimes be found. To perish is to cease to exist. The hope of the people no longer exists. They were in exile; they had seen the city of Jerusalem taken and the Temple sacked of its many precious vessels. They watched as the people were taken away and humiliated. Yes, all hope was lost and ceased to exist.

But God says, “I am not done with you, Israel. I will raise you as a nation from the grave where you lie, and I will return you to the land. I will put my spirit, my breath within you and you shall live again. You, and all others, will see that I am the Lord and that I have spoken and will act.” God is not doing this because the people repented. God is not doing this because God relented. No, God was doing this because God wanted to do this. God wanted the people to know that there was still a God who was their God and who would lead them back to the land of their ancestors. God would make them come alive again. Where hope perished, hope would be made alive again.

Though it may seem odd, Ezekiel is a prophet who speaks to Pentecost Sunday. He sees visions of God from the very beginning of the book. Throughout, the visions of God show what the people have done and what God is doing. But what if we were to change the wording from “visions of God” to “God’s vision?” How would that change what is being seen and heard? In our text for today, it would make Ezekiel see the valley of dry bones in a whole new light. When he first sees it, he sees only dry bones that will never live. But when he begins to prophecy, he is taken to another level. He begins to see with God’s eyes, eyes that see the bones being covered and life being brought back to them. Ezekiel sees what God’s vision for the people of Israel is.

On Pentecost do we see God’s vision? We are living in a time when the Church is declining, at least in what is known as the Western world. In the Global South and East there is an explosion of the Church. Here in the West, we have, I believe, not seen God’s vision for the Church. We look over a valley of dry bones, churches that are grayed, that are smaller in numbers than they used to be, that are not taken seriously because of the issues the Church has and our hope is perishing. We are akin to the exiles to whom Ezekiel spoke and no words of reassurance can cut through our despair.

But then we are invited to look through God’s eyes. Amos Wilder wrote a poem entitled “A Hard Death” in which he writes: “Accept no mitigation, But be instructed at the null point. The zero breeds new algebras.” We look through our own eyes and see null points, points where there is nothing good happening. The followers of Jesus were at a null point. They watched as their teacher and friend, the one on whom they hung all their hopes, was crucified. The cross must have been the starkest of zeroes as Katheryn Pfisterer Darr states it. But new algebras come from that zero. The cross became a symbol of hope, of life beyond death, of salvation. It is interesting that the valley of dry bones vision has no date as the other visions do. This is, in the words of Elie Wiesel, because every generation needs to hear in its own time that these bones can live once more. We may feel like the exiles, that all hope is lost or perished and that we can never return from where we are. But that is looking through our own eyes. When we look through God’s eyes, when we see God’s vision, then things change. Darr states that we see broader realities and that there are now bases for hope. Can these bones live? Absolutely not says the unbeliever (which include many in the church who are looking with their own eyes), the Church is dying and good riddance. But when we see with the eyes of God we will be amazed when the bones rise again. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.