It was all he
had ever known. It was all he had been prepared for. He didn’t really know how
to do anything else, he didn’t really have any other marketable skills and
everything was gone. At what should have been the height of his career, his
job, his life and everything he knew was turned on its head. Nebuchadnezzar and
his armies came and deposed the Southern Kingdom. Ezekiel thought he was meant
to be a priest but then the word of the LORD came and informed him otherwise.
He was called to prophesy to people who probably wouldn’t want to listen to
him. Sure, the Israelites wanted to throw off the Babylonian oppression, but
they wanted to do it their way. They wanted to fight, and, a decade later, they
lost: Jerusalem was in ruins, the Temple destroyed. We want to do it our way,
to solve problems the way we think is best… and then we find out that we were
wrong and that the voice we had been listening to hadn’t been God’s after all,
but our own voice projected on to the voice of God.
It would be a really short sermon if I just said, “Now do what God says, or else.” It would be a really short Bible if it just said that. But it doesn’t. We aren’t simply told to be good, to do right, to not sin and sent on our merry ways. Instead, we have these stories spanning time and space, during war, during exile, during peace, during internal conflict, during doubt, during fear, during times of celebration and times of deep grief. Instead of a list of Do’s and Don’ts, we are drawn into something bigger, something more than simply trying to figure out how to make an angry god happy with us as if we’re playing a cosmic game of Russian Roulette.
So Ezekiel has this crazy dream. In the dream there is a valley and all sorts of bones. Men, women and children lie in a pile, a mass grave of humanity, a testament to their impermanence, a reminder of their mortality. “Mortal, can these bones live?” My best guess is that Ezekiel’s reply has been cleaned up a bit from what he would have actually said. I think that “Oh Lord, you know,” is a way of saying, “No way. Not a chance.” The frailty and faithlessness of humanity was piled in a ditch. Prophesy, Mortal.
Maybe it was something Ezekiel had eaten for dinner. Maybe it was the delirium of remembering a past life, the memories of him being happy so far away from where he was now. Somehow, the memories of times when we were happy become magnified during times of crisis. All we want is to go back, to reclaim those times so that we can appreciate them in a way that we didn’t. All we want is to go back to say one last “I love you.” All we want to do is read one more story, play one more game, make it last a little longer. But at the time, we took it for granted. And slowly, but surely, the sinews and flesh became shells of humanity. We move through life as skeletons, forgetting the past and scared to imagine the future.
Prophesy, Mortal. Prophesy to the bones. And the bones began to clamor, the echoes of life reverberating in the valley. The bones rattled into place and muscles and sinews began to cover them. The dead became undead in a way no TV show has thought to portray. The bones came together, but they were not alive. Flesh and bone are not enough. Prophesy, Mortal.
Moving through the motions of life is pretty easy. After a while, the job that we had been so excited to take gives way to days of monotony or dreaded tasks, dreaded coworkers. After a while, the nightly news has more to say about who we are than God does. With all the death and destruction around us, we turn inward, attempting to focus on our little corner of the world. But the bones continue rattling, reminding us that we spend more of our time trying to avoid death than we do actually living.
Prophesy, Mortal. Call to the wind, the spirit, the breath. Call to the North, South, East and West. And Ezekiel saw the dead, dry bones become flesh and the flesh come to life. Ezekiel saw them resurrected in the midst of death. In the midst of hopelessness. In the midst of the mess they had created for themselves even though Ezekiel had warned them.
But we don’t look for resurrection in the midst of death. We don’t look for hope in the valley of dry bones. We don’t say Allel… during the middle of Lent. But there it is, staring us in the face. The hope and the joy of the destination, the knowledge that our God did not simply give us a list of do’s and don’ts and then send us off into the world with no other recourse. No, being human is far more messy than that. We need a story that can hold hope in the face of failure. We need a story that can hold life in the face of death.
They had completely blown it. Ezekiel had warned them, and they didn’t listen. They took up their arms and they fought against the Babylonians, and they had lost. Everything they had known had been destroyed. They didn’t know what it was that they’d had until they lost it. They were as good as dead, broken and strewn about Babylonia. God had cried out to them, and they didn’t listen. They cried out to God, and God promised them life: “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.”
But God decided to write a different end to the story than what Israel had envisioned.
We may not envision resurrection in the midst of death or for hope in the valley of the shadow of death, but God does. Right here, in the middle of Lent, we find the proclamation of life. We are called to a different imagination, a different life: we are called to a life of story, a life of promise, a life of hope. If God had simply wanted to give us a list of Do’s and Don’ts, that would have been easy enough… but it wouldn’t have saved us.
Because we don’t really think we need to be saved when everything is going according to plan. It’s when all our plans fail, when everything we had planned for goes wrong, when all of our hopes and dreams crumble and we start to spend our lives avoiding death instead of living. It is in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death, in the midst of piles of dry bones, in the middle of Lent, that these are the words we need to hear. When everything fails, when everything falls apart, when we can’t see through our grief, when we only have ourselves to blame, the words of new life come: These are not what defines you. This is not about a great cosmic gamble of trying to make God happy. This is about hope in the face of despair, life in the face of death. This is about the Easter promise that comes in the middle of Lent: it is the great Alleluia – yes I said it – that refuses to be silent even in the face of hopelessness and death. In the valley of dry bones, the word of the LORD comes. It comes when we least expect it, when all of our attempts have failed, but it comes, first in a whisper, and then in a shout, of the God who refuses to be silent in the face of our cries.
It would be a really short sermon if I just said, “Now do what God says, or else.” It would be a really short Bible if it just said that. But it doesn’t. We aren’t simply told to be good, to do right, to not sin and sent on our merry ways. Instead, we have these stories spanning time and space, during war, during exile, during peace, during internal conflict, during doubt, during fear, during times of celebration and times of deep grief. Instead of a list of Do’s and Don’ts, we are drawn into something bigger, something more than simply trying to figure out how to make an angry god happy with us as if we’re playing a cosmic game of Russian Roulette.
So Ezekiel has this crazy dream. In the dream there is a valley and all sorts of bones. Men, women and children lie in a pile, a mass grave of humanity, a testament to their impermanence, a reminder of their mortality. “Mortal, can these bones live?” My best guess is that Ezekiel’s reply has been cleaned up a bit from what he would have actually said. I think that “Oh Lord, you know,” is a way of saying, “No way. Not a chance.” The frailty and faithlessness of humanity was piled in a ditch. Prophesy, Mortal.
Maybe it was something Ezekiel had eaten for dinner. Maybe it was the delirium of remembering a past life, the memories of him being happy so far away from where he was now. Somehow, the memories of times when we were happy become magnified during times of crisis. All we want is to go back, to reclaim those times so that we can appreciate them in a way that we didn’t. All we want is to go back to say one last “I love you.” All we want to do is read one more story, play one more game, make it last a little longer. But at the time, we took it for granted. And slowly, but surely, the sinews and flesh became shells of humanity. We move through life as skeletons, forgetting the past and scared to imagine the future.
Prophesy, Mortal. Prophesy to the bones. And the bones began to clamor, the echoes of life reverberating in the valley. The bones rattled into place and muscles and sinews began to cover them. The dead became undead in a way no TV show has thought to portray. The bones came together, but they were not alive. Flesh and bone are not enough. Prophesy, Mortal.
Moving through the motions of life is pretty easy. After a while, the job that we had been so excited to take gives way to days of monotony or dreaded tasks, dreaded coworkers. After a while, the nightly news has more to say about who we are than God does. With all the death and destruction around us, we turn inward, attempting to focus on our little corner of the world. But the bones continue rattling, reminding us that we spend more of our time trying to avoid death than we do actually living.
Prophesy, Mortal. Call to the wind, the spirit, the breath. Call to the North, South, East and West. And Ezekiel saw the dead, dry bones become flesh and the flesh come to life. Ezekiel saw them resurrected in the midst of death. In the midst of hopelessness. In the midst of the mess they had created for themselves even though Ezekiel had warned them.
But we don’t look for resurrection in the midst of death. We don’t look for hope in the valley of dry bones. We don’t say Allel… during the middle of Lent. But there it is, staring us in the face. The hope and the joy of the destination, the knowledge that our God did not simply give us a list of do’s and don’ts and then send us off into the world with no other recourse. No, being human is far more messy than that. We need a story that can hold hope in the face of failure. We need a story that can hold life in the face of death.
They had completely blown it. Ezekiel had warned them, and they didn’t listen. They took up their arms and they fought against the Babylonians, and they had lost. Everything they had known had been destroyed. They didn’t know what it was that they’d had until they lost it. They were as good as dead, broken and strewn about Babylonia. God had cried out to them, and they didn’t listen. They cried out to God, and God promised them life: “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.”
But God decided to write a different end to the story than what Israel had envisioned.
We may not envision resurrection in the midst of death or for hope in the valley of the shadow of death, but God does. Right here, in the middle of Lent, we find the proclamation of life. We are called to a different imagination, a different life: we are called to a life of story, a life of promise, a life of hope. If God had simply wanted to give us a list of Do’s and Don’ts, that would have been easy enough… but it wouldn’t have saved us.
Because we don’t really think we need to be saved when everything is going according to plan. It’s when all our plans fail, when everything we had planned for goes wrong, when all of our hopes and dreams crumble and we start to spend our lives avoiding death instead of living. It is in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death, in the midst of piles of dry bones, in the middle of Lent, that these are the words we need to hear. When everything fails, when everything falls apart, when we can’t see through our grief, when we only have ourselves to blame, the words of new life come: These are not what defines you. This is not about a great cosmic gamble of trying to make God happy. This is about hope in the face of despair, life in the face of death. This is about the Easter promise that comes in the middle of Lent: it is the great Alleluia – yes I said it – that refuses to be silent even in the face of hopelessness and death. In the valley of dry bones, the word of the LORD comes. It comes when we least expect it, when all of our attempts have failed, but it comes, first in a whisper, and then in a shout, of the God who refuses to be silent in the face of our cries.
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