Matters of life and death
Commentary
Object:
As I look out on my congregation on any given Sunday, I recognize that a significant percentage of the folks gathered here are involved in matters of life and death.
For some, it comes with their profession. Doctors, fire fighters, police officers, members of the military -- these are folks in our flocks who deal with matters of life and death every week. They don't have to look very far from any given Sunday to find a high-stakes experience in their work.
For others, however, the experience is not professional, but personal. The young couple that is eagerly expecting a new life in their home. The middle-aged woman who is watching her mother die gradually. The older man who has recently received a diagnosis that has brought mortality so close to home. The widow who is remembering this weekend the wedding anniversary she shared with her late husband. On any given Sunday morning, you know, we have a lot of people in our pews who are dealing with matters of life and death.
Frankly, the weight of the burden is overwhelming for many folks. Some will try to anesthetize themselves to the pain in unhealthy and even self-destructive ways. Others will simply seek every manner of harmless distraction in order to take their minds off their troubles. And many simply do not know where to turn in the midst of their fear and their grief.
This Sunday, they should know that they have come to the right place for the scriptures deal constantly and candidly with matters of life and death. And our three selected passages for this Sunday will give to our people great insight and hope in matters of life and death.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
It's a risky business to make oneself available to God. Jesus himself noted that "the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). We observe in his own experience the undesirable place to which the Spirit led him (see Matthew 4:1). And so it is here that Ezekiel is moved "by the spirit of the Lord" into a setting that must have been most unsettling.
The prophet's language is descriptive and emphatic, and so we are given a good sense for the scene. It is a valley, which suggests that Ezekiel is surrounded by hills or mountains, and the valley was "full of bones." Just to come across a few human bones would be unpleasant enough. But can we imagine ourselves in a place chock full and piled high with bones?
Furthermore, we discover that these are not skeletons. These bones are not attached to one another in human forms any longer. And so the scene is not just one of death, but one of apparent violence or mutilation. It must have been a horrifying setting.
Finally, Ezekiel adds the detail that the bones were "very dry." In other words, what has died here has been dead a long time. There is no remnant of moisture and life in this place. Rather, it is a scene of emphatic death: for the skeletons are dismembered and the bones are parched.
Into that original Death Valley, then, the Lord introduces a question: "Mortal, can these bones live?"
It is, by every standard, a preposterous question. At the same time, however, it is a question consistent with the Inquirer. For this is a God who specializes in improbabilities. That a 90-year-old woman should give birth to a son, that a slave nation should be freed overnight, that a walled city should fall to trumpets, that a boy should defeat a giant in battle, that God should become a baby, and that a rag-tag group of erstwhile fishermen should boldly evangelize the world -- these are all highly unlikely. Yet the unlikely seems to be his specialty.
Perhaps that is why Ezekiel offers the ray-of-hope answer that he does. Instead of following a human calculation to its obvious conclusion -- "Are you crazy? No, these bones can't live!" -- Ezekiel recognizes the potential that resides with a sovereign God. "O Lord God, you know." It is an answer of faith and possibility that would suit us well in many circumstances where we are prompted to wonder, "Is it possible? Can it be?"
Then comes the command to prophesy. This becomes the great prevailing theme of the scene, as the Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones (v. 4), to the breath (v. 9), and eventually to "the whole house of Israel" (v. 12).
But prophesying is not the central theme of the scene merely because it is repeated. Rather, it is the theme because it is the pivotal and impactful action. The scene changes precisely because of this prophesying. What began as a mass grave of dry and dismembered bones became a living, breathing multitude of people, and prophesying was the catalyst. This is no small detail, and so we will give it full attention below.
Romans 8:6-11
Our play has three main characters. Allow me to introduce them to you.
First, there is the flesh. This is a human character, and he is villainous. Paul says that he is "hostile to God," and he is, literally, an outlaw, for he "does not submit to God's law." Within the scene that Paul is portraying -- namely, the Christian life -- the flesh is both a victim and an agent of death. Paul reports that he is "dead because of sin," yet he is not dead in the sense that we typically think. It's quite clear to everyone else -- both the audience and the other actors -- that the flesh is alive. Yet he exists under both the sentence and the dominion of death. He is, accordingly, unable to truly live. And, like Typhoid Mary, he is a carrier, and so he is to be avoided.
Second, there is the Spirit. He is not a human character, for he comes from God. Indeed, he is "the Spirit of Christ." Now the Spirit may be and live within a human being, but he does not originate with a human being. In influence and impact, we observe that he is quite the opposite of flesh. While flesh is contrarian, resisting and opposing the things of God -- or, even at his best, unable to perform the things of God -- the Spirit is of God. The Spirit's influence, therefore, leads to a life that reflects God and is pleasing to God.
Finally, there is the mind. He is also a human character, yet not as problematic as flesh. Mind, it seems, is not so imprisoned by death as flesh is, and so he is free to choose his own course. Indeed, the apostle encourages him in precisely that venture, recognizing that he can follow the lead of either flesh or Spirit.
It is on this final point that the mind reminds me of a navigational system.
We recently purchased one of those GPS devices for our car prior to making a family trip, and it proved to be a fascinating experience. We suctioned it to our windshield and from that vantage point it was able to be in communication with some satellite. And with that extraterrestrial resource employed, the little unit was able to tell us where we were at any given moment and how to get to where we were going.
Let us imagine that the navigational system in my car can choose between two different satellites, and that those two satellites do not prescribe the same routes or lead to the same destinations. The one, Paul would say, leads to death. The other, by contrast, leads to "life and peace." Given that choice, it seems a simple and obvious thing on which satellite you'd choose to set your system. So it is, then, that Paul instructs the Christian to set his or her navigational system -- that is, the mind -- on the Spirit, but not on the flesh.
John 11:1-45
Select 45 verses from almost any chapter in the Bible, and it would be a tall order to do justice to the text in a single Sunday. How much more, then, when that volume of verses is taken from this chapter and story in John? The preacher can't hope to cover the breadth and plumb the depth of this passage in a single sermon, and this writer certainly can't do it in just a few paragraphs. What I can share, however, is my own personal instinct with the text.
Of all that is available in these verses, I am inclined to focus my attention -- and my congregation's attention -- on just three sentences. They come at significant moments in the story, and they reveal truths about our faith and about our Lord.
First, I would preach Mary and Martha's grief, for their experience will naturally resonate with so many people in our pews. We can imagine the high hopes and natural expectations they had when they sent word to their friend that their brother was ill. How many stories had they heard about Jesus coming to a home to heal someone? And those were strangers! Yet we can imagine how those expectations turned into questions as day after day passed. And when their brother died without Jesus ever having arrived, their disappointment must have been profound.
We get a measure of that personal disappointment in the fact that the first thing that both Martha and Mary say to Jesus when he does arrive is exactly the same. "Lord, if you had been here," each one says independently, "my brother would not have died." That both women greeted Jesus this same way illustrates how prominent in their minds and hearts this sentiment was.
The poet sang, "Have faith in God, and wait; although he linger long, he never comes too late" (Bradford Torrey, Not So in Haste, My Heart, UMH #455). The grieving sisters of Lazarus, however, would have been inclined to dispute that statement of faith.
The first sentence to preach, therefore, is the repeated expression of personal disappointment. It captures all that has gone before in the story, and it articulates the faith crisis that many of our people have known, as well. We know what it is, after a prayer has gone unanswered, to think that the Lord did not come through in a timely way. If it is not irreverent to say so -- and the sisters in the story encourage me to think it is not -- we may think of times when God seems to have been quite tardy or altogether absent.
Upon further review, of course, we recognize that the sisters' sentence is not irreverent. On the contrary, it is a statement of faith -- an affirmation through the tears -- for you can only be disappointed if you had hope and expectation. And so this expression of disappointment should be understood as a statement of faith: a confident assumption about what Jesus could have done.
That, then, brings us to the next sentence. It is not the next sentence spoken in the story, but it is the natural heir to the first sentence. For the implicit expression of an earlier hope and a faith in Jesus is challenged now to adopt a new hope and a more complete faith.
"I am the resurrection and the life," Jesus declared to Martha. Just when she and Mary might have been inclined to believe something less about Jesus than they had, he invited her to believe something more. That's a tall order for a disappointed soul, and yet I suspect it is something of a pattern. Just after Peter had made his magnificent declaration about who Jesus is (Matthew 16:15-19), Jesus challenged him to believe something still more (Matthew 16:21-28). Just when the bewildered disciples might have been rethinking their high hopes for Jesus (Luke 24:21), the risen Christ pushed them to believe more (Luke 24:25-26). And so, while Martha had faith in Jesus as a miracle-working friend, and faith in God's future that there would be a someday resurrection, Jesus called upon her to believe that he himself was the resurrection.
Finally, the third sentence I would preach is Jesus' astonishing shout into a grave: "Lazarus, come out!" Who assumes such a posture? Who does such a thing? This is the authority of God. This is the voice of one who speaks light into darkness (Genesis 1:3), who rebukes wind and sea (Matthew 8:26-27), who dispatches demons with his word (Luke 8:26-33): the one who needs only to "speak the word" (Luke 7:7). For Mary and Martha, the beauty of the occasion was having their beloved brother restored to them. For us, the beauty is the revelation of Jesus as the one who has been given all authority (Matthew 28:18), including authority over death itself.
Application
Our first order of business, when it comes to a matter of life and death, is to recognize our choice in the matter. I don't mean to say that I can definitively choose whether or not to have cancer, a stroke, or a car accident. Rather, I mean that the apostle Paul, as part of a longstanding tradition in scripture, has set before us a choice between life and death. The issue here is neither longevity nor immortality. The issue is the direction of our existence. Is our existence a participation in life or a participation in death? Toward which destination am I personally living?
For Paul, the direction of one's existence is about spirit and flesh. To live toward and in accord with the former is to truly live. To live under the influence of the latter, however, is a self-imposed death sentence.
The first order of business this Sunday, therefore, is not limited to certain professional or personal circumstances. This matter of life and death applies to every person on every Sunday. It is the potent question about which way we are living.
Then we turn to a second question -- the question that God posed to Ezekiel -- Can these bones live? This is the issue of hope in the midst of despair. This is the question of whether there is any possibility for life in a valley of death. This, too, can reach beyond the narrower definitions of biological life and death. There are people in broken relationships -- including, in some instances, a badly broken relationship with God -- who need to know whether it is possible again for there to be life where everything now seems to lifeless and hopeless. Can God bring new life into a setting where death prevails? We know that he can from the story of Ezekiel. And we know that he can from the story of Lazarus.
Our final order of business is to turn to that story from the gospel of John. We call it the story of Lazarus, which is a bit of a misnomer, for he is the character in the story we barely see and the one who has no lines in the script. In reality, it is the story of Jesus. And, specifically, it is the story of the one who can call into a grave and bring the dead back to life. It is the story of the one who is, himself, life. And it is the story of the one in whom we find resurrection. Because of him, therefore, we are assured that death only wins certain battles, but life wins the war.
In all matters of life and death, we should always choose and turn to life -- which is to say that we should always choose and turn to Jesus Christ.
Alternative Application
Ezekiel 37:1-14. "Prophesy to these bones." We noted above that prophesying was the central theme and catalytic act of our Old Testament story. We want now to explore the significance of prophesying in that episode at four different levels.
First, we observe the authority of the spoken word. This is thematic in scripture -- from God's method of creation (e.g., Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24) to Jesus' miracles (e.g., Matthew 8:26-27; Luke 7:8-10) to the key to his ultimate victory (Revelation 1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21). Yet our instinct is to judge the impact of the spoken word by the response of the hearer. In politics, for instance, if a speech does not score well in focus groups, then it is deemed a poor speech. In this particular instance, however, the "audience" is inanimate. This valley of bones is no focus group with dials in hand to measure their response. It is the difference between words that are persuasive and the word that is powerful.
The second principle we see at work in this episode is the human instrument in God's activity. Ezekiel was under no delusions about his capacity to bring the bones to life by himself. Clearly, what happened in the valley that day was God's miraculous doing. Yet God did not do his work independently, with Ezekiel merely standing by as an observer. Rather, Ezekiel was employed as a participant -- a partner in God's work. This, too, is a pattern throughout scripture, beginning with Adam's stewardship of God's creation and continuing through Jesus' great commission to his disciples.
Third, we see the transition from Ezekiel's experience to Ezekiel's calling. In other words, what happened in the valley of dry bones was neither God showing off nor a private blessing for the Ezekiel's benefit alone. Rather, the whole miraculous experience was designed to serve as a fabulous object lesson for the prophet. Those very dry and entirely dead bones symbolized "the whole house of Israel," and it was to that hopeless lot that Ezekiel was truly called to prophesy. His preaching to the bones and the breath was only meant to prepare him for his preaching to the seemingly dead nation. And God's resurrection of the dismembered skeletons was just a precursor to what he would do among his people Israel.
Finally, you and I may see in this episode a very personal application. For we, too, are called by God to proclaim his word to his people. Forbid it that I should answer God less faithfully when he asks if any seemingly hopeless situation around me can live. Forbid it that I should underestimate the authority of his word and the power of its proclamation. And forbid it that I should either forget or treat lightly my employment in his work.
Preaching the Psalm
Psalm 130
by Schuyler Rhodes
Watching for the morning
Most Americans don't know much about waiting. From fast food to quick lines at the supermarket, we like to keep moving and we don't much like having to wait. Flaring tempers and blaring horns in the midst of a traffic jam stand as convincing testimony to this truth. Simply put, mass marketing has made of us an impatient people. We want what we want, and we want it now.
So many things are being tailored so people don't have to wait that it gives one pause. Microwavable foods of every kind and instant response delivery people render waiting obsolete. Even college degrees are being offered now in condensed formats for the people who don't want to wait for four years.
Waiting, though, is a healthy discipline. Waiting is worthwhile when someone is preparing a gourmet meal made from scratch. Waiting is rewarded when a loved one returns from a long trip. And waiting for the first fresh strawberries from the garden is always rewarded by the incredible taste of the sun-ripened fruit. In the Christian calendar we set aside times for waiting. In both Lent and Advent the people of God adopt a posture of waiting as the people prepare for both the birth and the death of our Savior.
In these times and others we wait upon the Lord. In this psalm the writer is waiting for the Lord's forgiveness. Like sitting through the night and waiting for dawn's first glimmer, this writer waits upon the Lord.
Waiting is good. It teaches patience and discipline. It helps to sculpt a self-awareness that is not available to the microwave and take-out crowd. It fosters a patience that we see all too seldom in contemporary culture.
Waiting for God's forgiveness is something that most of us should consider. Indeed, seeking God's forgiveness in the first place is something most people would do well to pursue. So take a moment and conduct a fearless moral inventory. Are there places where God's forgiveness is needed? The answer is likely to be in the affirmative. Take these stumbling mistakes; these moral lapses and place them before God, asking for God's grace and forgiveness. Do this with authenticity. And then sit back with prayerful patience and wait. Practice the art of waiting… waiting upon the Lord.
For some, it comes with their profession. Doctors, fire fighters, police officers, members of the military -- these are folks in our flocks who deal with matters of life and death every week. They don't have to look very far from any given Sunday to find a high-stakes experience in their work.
For others, however, the experience is not professional, but personal. The young couple that is eagerly expecting a new life in their home. The middle-aged woman who is watching her mother die gradually. The older man who has recently received a diagnosis that has brought mortality so close to home. The widow who is remembering this weekend the wedding anniversary she shared with her late husband. On any given Sunday morning, you know, we have a lot of people in our pews who are dealing with matters of life and death.
Frankly, the weight of the burden is overwhelming for many folks. Some will try to anesthetize themselves to the pain in unhealthy and even self-destructive ways. Others will simply seek every manner of harmless distraction in order to take their minds off their troubles. And many simply do not know where to turn in the midst of their fear and their grief.
This Sunday, they should know that they have come to the right place for the scriptures deal constantly and candidly with matters of life and death. And our three selected passages for this Sunday will give to our people great insight and hope in matters of life and death.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
It's a risky business to make oneself available to God. Jesus himself noted that "the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). We observe in his own experience the undesirable place to which the Spirit led him (see Matthew 4:1). And so it is here that Ezekiel is moved "by the spirit of the Lord" into a setting that must have been most unsettling.
The prophet's language is descriptive and emphatic, and so we are given a good sense for the scene. It is a valley, which suggests that Ezekiel is surrounded by hills or mountains, and the valley was "full of bones." Just to come across a few human bones would be unpleasant enough. But can we imagine ourselves in a place chock full and piled high with bones?
Furthermore, we discover that these are not skeletons. These bones are not attached to one another in human forms any longer. And so the scene is not just one of death, but one of apparent violence or mutilation. It must have been a horrifying setting.
Finally, Ezekiel adds the detail that the bones were "very dry." In other words, what has died here has been dead a long time. There is no remnant of moisture and life in this place. Rather, it is a scene of emphatic death: for the skeletons are dismembered and the bones are parched.
Into that original Death Valley, then, the Lord introduces a question: "Mortal, can these bones live?"
It is, by every standard, a preposterous question. At the same time, however, it is a question consistent with the Inquirer. For this is a God who specializes in improbabilities. That a 90-year-old woman should give birth to a son, that a slave nation should be freed overnight, that a walled city should fall to trumpets, that a boy should defeat a giant in battle, that God should become a baby, and that a rag-tag group of erstwhile fishermen should boldly evangelize the world -- these are all highly unlikely. Yet the unlikely seems to be his specialty.
Perhaps that is why Ezekiel offers the ray-of-hope answer that he does. Instead of following a human calculation to its obvious conclusion -- "Are you crazy? No, these bones can't live!" -- Ezekiel recognizes the potential that resides with a sovereign God. "O Lord God, you know." It is an answer of faith and possibility that would suit us well in many circumstances where we are prompted to wonder, "Is it possible? Can it be?"
Then comes the command to prophesy. This becomes the great prevailing theme of the scene, as the Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones (v. 4), to the breath (v. 9), and eventually to "the whole house of Israel" (v. 12).
But prophesying is not the central theme of the scene merely because it is repeated. Rather, it is the theme because it is the pivotal and impactful action. The scene changes precisely because of this prophesying. What began as a mass grave of dry and dismembered bones became a living, breathing multitude of people, and prophesying was the catalyst. This is no small detail, and so we will give it full attention below.
Romans 8:6-11
Our play has three main characters. Allow me to introduce them to you.
First, there is the flesh. This is a human character, and he is villainous. Paul says that he is "hostile to God," and he is, literally, an outlaw, for he "does not submit to God's law." Within the scene that Paul is portraying -- namely, the Christian life -- the flesh is both a victim and an agent of death. Paul reports that he is "dead because of sin," yet he is not dead in the sense that we typically think. It's quite clear to everyone else -- both the audience and the other actors -- that the flesh is alive. Yet he exists under both the sentence and the dominion of death. He is, accordingly, unable to truly live. And, like Typhoid Mary, he is a carrier, and so he is to be avoided.
Second, there is the Spirit. He is not a human character, for he comes from God. Indeed, he is "the Spirit of Christ." Now the Spirit may be and live within a human being, but he does not originate with a human being. In influence and impact, we observe that he is quite the opposite of flesh. While flesh is contrarian, resisting and opposing the things of God -- or, even at his best, unable to perform the things of God -- the Spirit is of God. The Spirit's influence, therefore, leads to a life that reflects God and is pleasing to God.
Finally, there is the mind. He is also a human character, yet not as problematic as flesh. Mind, it seems, is not so imprisoned by death as flesh is, and so he is free to choose his own course. Indeed, the apostle encourages him in precisely that venture, recognizing that he can follow the lead of either flesh or Spirit.
It is on this final point that the mind reminds me of a navigational system.
We recently purchased one of those GPS devices for our car prior to making a family trip, and it proved to be a fascinating experience. We suctioned it to our windshield and from that vantage point it was able to be in communication with some satellite. And with that extraterrestrial resource employed, the little unit was able to tell us where we were at any given moment and how to get to where we were going.
Let us imagine that the navigational system in my car can choose between two different satellites, and that those two satellites do not prescribe the same routes or lead to the same destinations. The one, Paul would say, leads to death. The other, by contrast, leads to "life and peace." Given that choice, it seems a simple and obvious thing on which satellite you'd choose to set your system. So it is, then, that Paul instructs the Christian to set his or her navigational system -- that is, the mind -- on the Spirit, but not on the flesh.
John 11:1-45
Select 45 verses from almost any chapter in the Bible, and it would be a tall order to do justice to the text in a single Sunday. How much more, then, when that volume of verses is taken from this chapter and story in John? The preacher can't hope to cover the breadth and plumb the depth of this passage in a single sermon, and this writer certainly can't do it in just a few paragraphs. What I can share, however, is my own personal instinct with the text.
Of all that is available in these verses, I am inclined to focus my attention -- and my congregation's attention -- on just three sentences. They come at significant moments in the story, and they reveal truths about our faith and about our Lord.
First, I would preach Mary and Martha's grief, for their experience will naturally resonate with so many people in our pews. We can imagine the high hopes and natural expectations they had when they sent word to their friend that their brother was ill. How many stories had they heard about Jesus coming to a home to heal someone? And those were strangers! Yet we can imagine how those expectations turned into questions as day after day passed. And when their brother died without Jesus ever having arrived, their disappointment must have been profound.
We get a measure of that personal disappointment in the fact that the first thing that both Martha and Mary say to Jesus when he does arrive is exactly the same. "Lord, if you had been here," each one says independently, "my brother would not have died." That both women greeted Jesus this same way illustrates how prominent in their minds and hearts this sentiment was.
The poet sang, "Have faith in God, and wait; although he linger long, he never comes too late" (Bradford Torrey, Not So in Haste, My Heart, UMH #455). The grieving sisters of Lazarus, however, would have been inclined to dispute that statement of faith.
The first sentence to preach, therefore, is the repeated expression of personal disappointment. It captures all that has gone before in the story, and it articulates the faith crisis that many of our people have known, as well. We know what it is, after a prayer has gone unanswered, to think that the Lord did not come through in a timely way. If it is not irreverent to say so -- and the sisters in the story encourage me to think it is not -- we may think of times when God seems to have been quite tardy or altogether absent.
Upon further review, of course, we recognize that the sisters' sentence is not irreverent. On the contrary, it is a statement of faith -- an affirmation through the tears -- for you can only be disappointed if you had hope and expectation. And so this expression of disappointment should be understood as a statement of faith: a confident assumption about what Jesus could have done.
That, then, brings us to the next sentence. It is not the next sentence spoken in the story, but it is the natural heir to the first sentence. For the implicit expression of an earlier hope and a faith in Jesus is challenged now to adopt a new hope and a more complete faith.
"I am the resurrection and the life," Jesus declared to Martha. Just when she and Mary might have been inclined to believe something less about Jesus than they had, he invited her to believe something more. That's a tall order for a disappointed soul, and yet I suspect it is something of a pattern. Just after Peter had made his magnificent declaration about who Jesus is (Matthew 16:15-19), Jesus challenged him to believe something still more (Matthew 16:21-28). Just when the bewildered disciples might have been rethinking their high hopes for Jesus (Luke 24:21), the risen Christ pushed them to believe more (Luke 24:25-26). And so, while Martha had faith in Jesus as a miracle-working friend, and faith in God's future that there would be a someday resurrection, Jesus called upon her to believe that he himself was the resurrection.
Finally, the third sentence I would preach is Jesus' astonishing shout into a grave: "Lazarus, come out!" Who assumes such a posture? Who does such a thing? This is the authority of God. This is the voice of one who speaks light into darkness (Genesis 1:3), who rebukes wind and sea (Matthew 8:26-27), who dispatches demons with his word (Luke 8:26-33): the one who needs only to "speak the word" (Luke 7:7). For Mary and Martha, the beauty of the occasion was having their beloved brother restored to them. For us, the beauty is the revelation of Jesus as the one who has been given all authority (Matthew 28:18), including authority over death itself.
Application
Our first order of business, when it comes to a matter of life and death, is to recognize our choice in the matter. I don't mean to say that I can definitively choose whether or not to have cancer, a stroke, or a car accident. Rather, I mean that the apostle Paul, as part of a longstanding tradition in scripture, has set before us a choice between life and death. The issue here is neither longevity nor immortality. The issue is the direction of our existence. Is our existence a participation in life or a participation in death? Toward which destination am I personally living?
For Paul, the direction of one's existence is about spirit and flesh. To live toward and in accord with the former is to truly live. To live under the influence of the latter, however, is a self-imposed death sentence.
The first order of business this Sunday, therefore, is not limited to certain professional or personal circumstances. This matter of life and death applies to every person on every Sunday. It is the potent question about which way we are living.
Then we turn to a second question -- the question that God posed to Ezekiel -- Can these bones live? This is the issue of hope in the midst of despair. This is the question of whether there is any possibility for life in a valley of death. This, too, can reach beyond the narrower definitions of biological life and death. There are people in broken relationships -- including, in some instances, a badly broken relationship with God -- who need to know whether it is possible again for there to be life where everything now seems to lifeless and hopeless. Can God bring new life into a setting where death prevails? We know that he can from the story of Ezekiel. And we know that he can from the story of Lazarus.
Our final order of business is to turn to that story from the gospel of John. We call it the story of Lazarus, which is a bit of a misnomer, for he is the character in the story we barely see and the one who has no lines in the script. In reality, it is the story of Jesus. And, specifically, it is the story of the one who can call into a grave and bring the dead back to life. It is the story of the one who is, himself, life. And it is the story of the one in whom we find resurrection. Because of him, therefore, we are assured that death only wins certain battles, but life wins the war.
In all matters of life and death, we should always choose and turn to life -- which is to say that we should always choose and turn to Jesus Christ.
Alternative Application
Ezekiel 37:1-14. "Prophesy to these bones." We noted above that prophesying was the central theme and catalytic act of our Old Testament story. We want now to explore the significance of prophesying in that episode at four different levels.
First, we observe the authority of the spoken word. This is thematic in scripture -- from God's method of creation (e.g., Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24) to Jesus' miracles (e.g., Matthew 8:26-27; Luke 7:8-10) to the key to his ultimate victory (Revelation 1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21). Yet our instinct is to judge the impact of the spoken word by the response of the hearer. In politics, for instance, if a speech does not score well in focus groups, then it is deemed a poor speech. In this particular instance, however, the "audience" is inanimate. This valley of bones is no focus group with dials in hand to measure their response. It is the difference between words that are persuasive and the word that is powerful.
The second principle we see at work in this episode is the human instrument in God's activity. Ezekiel was under no delusions about his capacity to bring the bones to life by himself. Clearly, what happened in the valley that day was God's miraculous doing. Yet God did not do his work independently, with Ezekiel merely standing by as an observer. Rather, Ezekiel was employed as a participant -- a partner in God's work. This, too, is a pattern throughout scripture, beginning with Adam's stewardship of God's creation and continuing through Jesus' great commission to his disciples.
Third, we see the transition from Ezekiel's experience to Ezekiel's calling. In other words, what happened in the valley of dry bones was neither God showing off nor a private blessing for the Ezekiel's benefit alone. Rather, the whole miraculous experience was designed to serve as a fabulous object lesson for the prophet. Those very dry and entirely dead bones symbolized "the whole house of Israel," and it was to that hopeless lot that Ezekiel was truly called to prophesy. His preaching to the bones and the breath was only meant to prepare him for his preaching to the seemingly dead nation. And God's resurrection of the dismembered skeletons was just a precursor to what he would do among his people Israel.
Finally, you and I may see in this episode a very personal application. For we, too, are called by God to proclaim his word to his people. Forbid it that I should answer God less faithfully when he asks if any seemingly hopeless situation around me can live. Forbid it that I should underestimate the authority of his word and the power of its proclamation. And forbid it that I should either forget or treat lightly my employment in his work.
Preaching the Psalm
Psalm 130
by Schuyler Rhodes
Watching for the morning
Most Americans don't know much about waiting. From fast food to quick lines at the supermarket, we like to keep moving and we don't much like having to wait. Flaring tempers and blaring horns in the midst of a traffic jam stand as convincing testimony to this truth. Simply put, mass marketing has made of us an impatient people. We want what we want, and we want it now.
So many things are being tailored so people don't have to wait that it gives one pause. Microwavable foods of every kind and instant response delivery people render waiting obsolete. Even college degrees are being offered now in condensed formats for the people who don't want to wait for four years.
Waiting, though, is a healthy discipline. Waiting is worthwhile when someone is preparing a gourmet meal made from scratch. Waiting is rewarded when a loved one returns from a long trip. And waiting for the first fresh strawberries from the garden is always rewarded by the incredible taste of the sun-ripened fruit. In the Christian calendar we set aside times for waiting. In both Lent and Advent the people of God adopt a posture of waiting as the people prepare for both the birth and the death of our Savior.
In these times and others we wait upon the Lord. In this psalm the writer is waiting for the Lord's forgiveness. Like sitting through the night and waiting for dawn's first glimmer, this writer waits upon the Lord.
Waiting is good. It teaches patience and discipline. It helps to sculpt a self-awareness that is not available to the microwave and take-out crowd. It fosters a patience that we see all too seldom in contemporary culture.
Waiting for God's forgiveness is something that most of us should consider. Indeed, seeking God's forgiveness in the first place is something most people would do well to pursue. So take a moment and conduct a fearless moral inventory. Are there places where God's forgiveness is needed? The answer is likely to be in the affirmative. Take these stumbling mistakes; these moral lapses and place them before God, asking for God's grace and forgiveness. Do this with authenticity. And then sit back with prayerful patience and wait. Practice the art of waiting… waiting upon the Lord.
