Hope for Dry Bones
Crypt, Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, March 1992, photo by the author.
The Rev. Dr. John Hembruch, Easter 2023
Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 48, Ezekiel 37:1-14
Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. –Ezekiel 37:5
Ezekiel’s oracle has been known and preserved for 2,600 years. Wherever Jews and Christians have faced the brokenness of death and shattered dreams, the communal lament of verse 11 has felt like a good fit to their circumstances: Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. In recent worship services, we have prayed for people who are feeling the same way. If we try to list them, then we will remember those we love facing death in their families or illness or depression, victims of war in Ukraine, earthquake in Syria and Turkey, our fellow citizens coping with the effects of gun violence, poverty, hunger, homelessness, storms and floods in the west. On Maundy Thursday, we remembered the tragedy of several recent tornadoes. There’s a certain weight that we carry, when we try to address the pain and heartache of dry bones, whether far away or within our church family.
On Easter morning, this preacher would like nothing better than to deliver a grand sermon, through which God lifts all our burdens and replaces them with joy. But then he remembers the wisest words he ever heard about the Easter sermon, which were: “Don’t try to say too much.” The point was that at Easter, it’s difficult to pay attention. There are morning rituals with colored eggs and candy, the cooking and serving of a family feast, some hoping to make it through worship or brunch in time for a smooth transition to the Cardinals game. For those here nearly every week, Easter feels like an occasion to break from the demands of the Lenten season, to appreciate the beautiful flowers, and to sing the joyful hymns. “Don’t try to say too much” seems like a wise word.
Offering gratitude doesn’t seem like too much. So I would like to say thank you for the wonderful support we all have enjoyed leading up to this day. Dr. Annis Hopkins, leading our chancel choir: what a marvelous cantata! Robert Raymond: his postludes are a mini-concert that many anticipate. Mary Anna Davis and the women led a thoughtful Good Friday worship service. We appreciate Lynn Rogers and Mary Lou Sullivan in leading our children’s chorus, the Bell Choir, the deacons, the technology team, and our Sunday school teachers. We appreciate the Lenten study teaching leadership of John Higgins, and the work of the Evangelism Committee in providing dessert and promoting the event. We’ve had many opportunities to be educated and inspired in the build-up to Easter! Thank you!
I also would like to say thank you to those who offered encouragement about the journey my sermons have taken through the Hebrew Testament. Today, we complete this part of the journey by circling back to the prophet Ezekiel. Like Habakkuk, the prophet we most recently visited, Ezekiel’s ministry took place in the southern kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem as its hub. The pivotal event around which the prophet’s ministry revolves is the disaster of 586 B.C.E, when Jerusalem was conquered, and the Temple desecrated.
About Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, no one knows its exact inspiration. When I visited Israel, we read Ezekiel from the Mount of Olives, on which tens of thousands of Jewish people are buried. It was to this high place that Ezekiel says the Spirit of the Lord moved when the Temple’s sanctuary was desecrated. Today, while looking across the Kidron Valley toward the old city, the grave markers are a reminder of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones.
If you want to get into the spirit of the sight, then think of Jefferson Barracks or another military cemetery with its thousands of white markers in neat rows, each representing the grief of many more people. With that picture in your mind, remember how God asks, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel barely can muster up enough energy to mutter, “O Lord God, you know.”
Life presents us with many opportunities to feel the despair that Ezekiel feels. Perhaps you’ve spent time in the hospital. You’ve been hooked up to tubes and wires, or holding the hand of someone in that situation. Physical health isn’t the only area in which we may ask questions about life and death. When any one of a hundred things come our way – lawsuit or layoff, divorce or domestic disaster – we have basis for understanding at a gut level the question: “Can these bones live?”
If you and I are honest, sometimes we can muster only enough courage to say, “Maybe.” Sometimes, the clogged artery is bypassed or the cancer goes into remission. Sometimes the business crisis or legal action is averted. But other times, hoped for outcomes don’t happen, and the answer to the question, “Can these bones live?” is a heartbreaking “No.”
Ezekiel’s text speaks to people who felt like that, and builds up to God’s bold promise: “I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves …. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” At the time God said this, it must have seemed impossible. But, in time, his people were released, and the temple restored. Babylon, the seemingly invincible empire, was replaced. Each of these reversals in fortune came as unexpected surprise to those who experienced them.
Hundreds of years later, another dark time descends upon God’s people. Jesus’ disciples live in confusion about the meaning of his crucifixion and resurrection; they fear for their future. The way Matthew tells it, the Day of Resurrection began with very little faith left on the part of Jesus’ closest friends. But as events unfold, and to their surprise, fear fades, and faith is reborn. It’s a reminder that what seems impossible today, by God’s grace, may happen tomorrow.
Each Easter, the Church places before us the good news of scripture about the possibilities and promise of new life. Whatever experiences of doubt, death, grief, and heartache each of us brings here today, I pray for you, and we pray for one another: May Jesus meet us, and share a greeting of grace and peace. May the good news Ezekiel heard become real for you, “I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people …. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live!
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