These bones
Commentary
Object:
The old spiritual sings of "dem bones," but that reference is just a step removed, isn't it?
After all, God doesn't ask Ezekiel about "them bones" or "those bones." Rather, God asks
Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?"
"These bones," you see, are a little closer to home than "dem bones."
That's typical of God, is it not? To ask questions that are close to home? We are the ones who want to ask questions that are theoretical, at arm's length, a safe distance away, about someone else (see, for example, John 4:19-20; 21:20-21). But he doesn't ask us about those bones -- the ones over there, the ones at a safe distance, the ones that belong to someone else. Rather, he asks about these bones. He asks us about the bones right here in our own living room -- in our own hearts and lives and families.
Ezekiel walked among the bones, and they proved indeed to be bones that were close to home. For the Lord revealed to the prophet, "These bones are the whole house of Israel." These bones were Ezekiel's people, his constituency, his friends and neighbors and relatives. And God asked him, "Can these bones live?"
All three of our lections this week are life-and-death passages. The Old Testament prophet is surrounded by death and hopelessness; and God asks him whether there is hope for life there. The scene in Bethany is funereal: grieving family members and friends, until the one who is the resurrection and the life arrived. The apostle Paul instructs the Christians in Rome about the way of living that leads to life, as opposed to a lifestyle that is destined for death.
The three passages have life and death in common. Together they bear unanimous witness to the one who is the real source of life.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
This Old Testament passage is a mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar. It is familiar in the sense that most folks have probably heard of the story -- through the old African- American spiritual, if nothing else. It is entirely unfamiliar, however, in the sense that what Ezekiel witnessed must have been a sight like nothing we have ever seen before.
He describes it as a valley that was "full of bones." It is worth observing that the valley was not full of skeletons. That would suggest something more orderly and human than the sight that confronted Ezekiel. For this was not merely a scene of death, but of complete devastation. This was not a collection of corpses or skeletons, but rather a horrifying landscape of dismembered bodies.
Ezekiel observes that "they were very dry." One more detail bearing witness to how completely dead these people were. For they were not just dead; evidently they had been dead for a very long time.
It might seem hyperbolic, at first blush, to refer to someone or something as really dead. Yet, in our day, we would have to concede that it's a fair diagnosis. After all, we certainly know of instances of people who have been dead briefly, only to be revived. By contrast, someone who died a week ago is, we might say, really dead -- that is, they are beyond resuscitation.
Well, what Ezekiel saw was really dead. Dead, dismembered, and dry. There was no hope for resuscitation here.
Interesting, too, is the fact that Ezekiel does not get to see this scene from a safe distance. Rather, the Lord "set me down in the middle of a valley" and then "led me all around them." It was an up-close-and-personal walking tour of death that Ezekiel experienced.
In the end, of course, we see the meaning behind the experience, with all of those elements. Ezekiel is a prophet among the Jewish exiles in Babylon. He is not removed from them; rather, he is set down in the midst of them. He walks among them. They, in a sense, are very dead.
Perhaps we and our congregations have known some refugees along the way -- individuals and families who have been forced to flee from some country where the conditions were too dangerous to survive. We have seen how they look back on their homeland as a great tragedy. What has become of it -- whether by political turmoil, by war, by famine, or by natural disaster -- grieves their hearts.
These Jewish exiles had all of that; but there was still more. They were not refugees. They had not fled the devastation of their homeland to a place of safety. Rather, they were taken by force from their homeland by the very agents of that devastation. They had not found new life in a new land. Rather, they lived an existence of grief. The life and home they had known were dead; their glorious past and proud heritage were dead; their hopes for the future were dead; and for all of that, they might as well have been dead, too.
That is the setting in which Ezekiel walked in the midst. It was to that congregation of despair that he prophesied.
"Can these bones live?" God asked Ezekiel. It was an absurd question, an impossible prospect. And God knew that was the attitude of Ezekiel's contemporaries: "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost."
But absurd, impossible, and hopeless are insufficient obstacles where God is involved. And so, sure enough, these bones can live!
Romans 8:6-11
The NRSV translation of verse 6 may be slightly misleading. "To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." That rendering suggests that the original Greek utilizes the infinitive form of whatever the verb is for "setting the mind." In fact, however, a fascinating noun -- fron-ay-mah -- rather than any verb is employed. The noun is used only three times in the entire New Testament, and all three occurrences are found in this eighth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans (vv. 6, 7, and 27).
Bauer-Danker's Lexicon defines this unusual term as a "way of thinking, mind(- set)," as well as "aim, aspiration, striving." And so we might juxtapose "the way the flesh thinks" with "the way the Spirit thinks." Or we might compare the "aspiration of the flesh" with "the aspiration of the Spirit."
This might be a fruitful individual exercise: Invite people, perhaps during a silent time of prayer, to consider before God what it is the flesh strives for. That might lead to confession, as well as useful insight into the stealth struggles, which go on within us, and which so often defeat us and bring us down. After inviting the individual worshipers to give the matter some thought, we might share Paul's own list from his letter to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these" (5:19-21a).
The flesh does not deliberately aspire to death -- that would be nonsensical and self- destructive. Yet Paul insists that that's where the flesh leads. His point is reminiscent of the Proverb: "There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death" (Proverbs 14:12).
Furthermore, the dichotomy that Paul proposes echoes Moses' parting exhortation: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
In our day, it might be a useful metaphor to think of two different online resources for getting directions -- Google, Yahoo, MapQuest, Randy McNally, or some such. Imagine that you enter the same destinations into both, but one resource consistently gets you lost, while the other one consistently gets you to your goal. How long would it be before you'd abandon the one and use exclusively the other?
The human being enters destinations like "happiness," "fulfillment," and "contentment" into the flesh. The flesh has a certain way of trying to get to those destinations, but it always results in being lost. Enter those same goals into the Spirit, however, and it will get you safely and successfully there.
Paul refers to people being either "in the flesh" or "in the Spirit." It is probably a different expression and image for the same truth identified above -- such as having the mindset of the flesh or the mindset of the Spirit. The advantage of this imagery over the earlier one, however, is that we see the issue here as more than just an intellectual or attitudinal matter. Instead, we see ourselves as living within a context: either an environment of flesh or an environment of the Spirit. That, in turn, may lead to yet another time for reflective, silent prayer: asking God to help us identify individually how we do create and perpetuate an environment of the flesh and, conversely, how we might better cultivate an environment of the Spirit for ourselves.
Finally, though Paul's language and reasoning are sometimes difficult to follow, in the end we see a certain logic. I am invited no longer to live in the flesh, which leads to death; but, rather, I am encouraged to live in the Spirit, which leads to life. As I do live in the Spirit, then the Spirit is in me. And the Spirit that is in me, then, gives life to my flesh!
John 11:1-45
It seems almost unfair to assign a preacher this entire passage for a single Sunday. Tell the art lover to walk through the Louvre, but take just an hour to do it. How can you and I do justice to all that this story reveals in just one sermon?
First, there are the characters. We know a bit about Mary and Martha from the familiar episode in Luke (10:38-42) where each woman earns her reputation. And John reveals a bit more about Mary here by anticipating the episode in the following chapter when Mary anointed Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. We do not know so much about Lazarus, although he is at the center of this event.
Then there is the timing. Jesus learns about Lazarus' illness in time to prevent his death, but he waits deliberately before going to Bethany. This is not an isolated event in scripture. How many times would his people have expected his deliverance to come sooner than it did? Couldn't he have rescued Shadrach and company before they were actually thrown into the fire (Daniel 3)? Why did he slumber while his disciples were panicking in the midst of the storm at sea (Luke 8:22-25)? Why did he seem to delay in responding to the urgent pleading of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:22-28)? The next generation of Christians evidently wondered about his timing, too (see 2 Peter 3:1-9).
Next, there is the mysterious statement of purpose. "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." The comment is reminiscent of his earlier remarks about the man who had been born blind (see John 9:1-5). It raises for us the beautiful prospect of a God for whom difficulties become merely the backdrop for his marvelous work.
Then comes the poignant encounters with the two grieving sisters. We are led to believe by the Luke episode that the two women are quite different. But in their loss, they experience precisely the same faith crisis: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (Martha in v. 21 and Mary in v. 32). They -- along with the other observers who raise the same point (v. 37) -- embody the burden that comes with believing. If we did not believe in the first place that Jesus could do anything for sick Lazarus, then we would not be disturbed by Jesus' inaction. No other guest at the funeral is second-guessed like Jesus. It is only those who have faith in the first place, you see, who are subject to a faith crisis.
Equally poignant is the image of Jesus weeping by the tomb (v. 35). The power of God does not preempt his compassion. The fact that he can raise Lazarus from the dead does not make Jesus blasé about his death or dismissive of his friends' grief. He does not say, in one moment, "I am the resurrection and the life," and in the next moment, "So knock off all the crying and whining!" No, but rather, he declares that he is resurrection and life, and then he weeps alongside those who have suffered a death.
In the midst of the somber scene, Martha provides unintended comic relief. Whatever the occasion, we are always human, and we always are who we are. On the verge of Jesus' greatest miracle to date, Martha is concerned about the offensive smell that will ensue from removing the stone. Have we kept him from bringing life and healing to some area of our lives because we are embarrassed by the stench?
Then comes the moment -- Jesus calls into the tomb and commands Lazarus to come out. Surely this is the great epitome of both Jesus' love and his authority: that he calls Lazarus by name, on the one hand, and that he can give orders to corpses, on the other. John reports that Jesus "cried with a loud voice." Is this a foreshadowing of the "cry of command" that will cause the dead to rise at Christ's return (1 Thessalonians 4:16)?
At the end, the wonderful denouement: "Unbind him, and let him go." The grave clothes were appropriate for the previous four days, and they were not able to hinder the raising of the dead. But now it was no longer time for Lazarus to be dressed like a dead man. He had to be set free from that so that he could go forth as he now was: alive. So the Christian, having found new life in Christ, does well to ask what grave clothes ought to be shed in order to live anew.
And, in the midst of all the rest, there is the grand pinnacle of the episode: Jesus' self- revelation. "I am the resurrection and the life." It is one of the characteristic "I am" statements of Jesus in the fourth gospel, and it alone deserves a sermon all to itself.
Application
It's a fascinating question that the Lord asks Ezekiel. After all, one would naturally expect the dialogue to be reversed.
When we sit in the doctor's office, in the wake of a frightening diagnosis, he does not say to us, "Well, is there anything that can be done? Is there any hope? Will you survive this?" No, we ask those questions of the doctor.
Ezekiel has no capacity to reassemble and resuscitate a landscape of scattered bones. So why is God asking him if they can live? The question is not only nonsensical; it is misplaced.
But it is only a variation on the question that Jesus asks the grieving sister in the gospel lection. He has assured Martha that her brother "will rise again." She responds initially by expressing her confidence in "the resurrection on the last day." But Jesus reinterprets the resurrection, making it not an event but a person. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die," he tells her. And then comes the question: "Do you believe this?"
It's true, of course, whether she believes it or not. But what the Lord is able to do in her life may well depend upon what she believes. So it was, after all, for the faithless Israelites at the border of the promised land (see Deuteronomy 1:26-36) and for the incredulous people of Nazareth (see Mark 6:2-6).
And that is the crux of the matter for Ezekiel, as well. After all, God's question was not: "Ezekiel, can you make these bones live?" No, for the responsibility of accomplishing the impossible did not fall to Ezekiel; only the responsibility to believe that God could do the impossible.
So, the question comes to us. Some bones that are close to home -- these, not those. Some situation that seems hopeless: dead, dismembered, and dry, and the Lord asks us whether these bones can live, whether there is hope in the wasteland of hopelessness, and whether we believe.
We look around us, and everything about the circumstances tells us, "No." But we look at the scriptures -- Ezekiel's valley of people brought back to life, the dead-and-gone Lazarus walking back out of the tomb, and the Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead -- and they all tell us, "Yes! These bones can live!"
Alternative Application
Ezekiel 37:1-14. "Preaching About Preaching." Some pastors hesitate to do or say anything that promotes the Sunday morning sermon. Some insecurity about their own preaching, some wounds from an unappreciative culture or congregation, or some sense of personal modesty inhibits them, and so they don't want to make their preaching seem like a big event.
But it is a big event, and perhaps this week might be a good opportunity to affirm it.
I do not pretend that my preaching is a big event because of me. Whatever the merits of my creativity, my insight, or my delivery might be, preaching is not a big event because of me. Rather, it is in spite of me.
Dating all the way back to Paul and Barnabas' visit to Lystra, audiences have been tempted to misunderstand the importance of the preacher (see Acts 14:8-18). But imagine that tomorrow's mail brought a very important letter. Would you make a great fuss over the mail carrier?
Preaching is important, not because of the messenger, but because of the message.
This week's passage from Ezekiel is, tangentially at least, a passage about preaching. For the prophet was instructed to prophesy to bones and to breath, and that original death valley came to life. Ezekiel was not instructed to assemble all of the bones by hand. Neither was he set aside entirely while God worked the whole miracle himself. Instead, the prophet had a role in what God wanted to do and that role was to speak what God had instructed him to speak.
We are presented with a magnificent picture of preaching. The preacher speaks at God's call and command. God works the miracles, and the words that are proclaimed give life.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 130
Forgiveness is a concept common to most everyone. It covers a vast landscape, to be sure. In biblical understanding it is especially broad, linking together economic, social, divine, and interpersonal realities. Indeed, it is pervasive and foundational to Judeo- Christian faith. However, in our contemporary world we cling with worn fingernails to forgiveness as a sparse, seldom used interpersonal notion. If utilized, it comes when two people have a quarrel, and one forgives the other -- simple -- clean -- easy -- not too intrusive.
Yet, for people of faith, this cannot be the case. Forgiveness is the ground upon which we walk. It is the air we breathe and the eyes through which we see. It is integral, not only to our self-understanding but to our apprehension of God. Forgiveness is not just the stock and trade of faith, it has to do with the fiber of human reality.
Human beings need forgiveness. We need it because we are broken, flawed, and frail. We need it because, as the middle schooler in church wryly comments, "we mess up a lot." The words of this psalm go directly to this point.
With a full and painful awareness of culpability and responsibility the writer comes clean. If God kept score, none of us could stand (v. 4). How true it is.
But with God, there is forgiveness. Not a trite burying of the hatchet; not a sweeping under the rug of past hurts and insults, and not the strained fabric of denial, but true and miraculous forgiveness. For this, the soul will "wait." For this, the spirit dares to "hope."
True forgiveness changes things. It wipes clean the slate of anger and hurt. It breathes fresh air onto old wounds so that they can heal. It lifts the burden of guilt and allows for new beginnings. Yet, such powerful new possibilities are seldom realized in the wake of a narrow and self-absorbed notion of forgiveness.
Perhaps a fresh reading of this psalm can expand our understanding of forgiveness to include each and every aspect of the lives we lead together. Maybe if each person stopped to "wait" upon God's grace and forgiveness, a whole world of new opportunities might present themselves. Imagine what would happen in this nation if the idea of forgiveness reached into the economic realm? Forgiveness of debts in a debt-ridden world? It would be nothing short of revolutionary.
Picture, too, a world where the great social sins were answered, not with even greater sins, but forgiveness. We need only look to the Truth and Justice Commission of South Africa to see that such a thing can happen. Finally, it stirs the soul to conjure up a world where interpersonal relationships were marked with the practice of a true and transformational forgiveness.
There is indeed forgiveness with you, O Lord! And while we wait, let us dare to practice this divine art across the spectrum of our lives.
"These bones," you see, are a little closer to home than "dem bones."
That's typical of God, is it not? To ask questions that are close to home? We are the ones who want to ask questions that are theoretical, at arm's length, a safe distance away, about someone else (see, for example, John 4:19-20; 21:20-21). But he doesn't ask us about those bones -- the ones over there, the ones at a safe distance, the ones that belong to someone else. Rather, he asks about these bones. He asks us about the bones right here in our own living room -- in our own hearts and lives and families.
Ezekiel walked among the bones, and they proved indeed to be bones that were close to home. For the Lord revealed to the prophet, "These bones are the whole house of Israel." These bones were Ezekiel's people, his constituency, his friends and neighbors and relatives. And God asked him, "Can these bones live?"
All three of our lections this week are life-and-death passages. The Old Testament prophet is surrounded by death and hopelessness; and God asks him whether there is hope for life there. The scene in Bethany is funereal: grieving family members and friends, until the one who is the resurrection and the life arrived. The apostle Paul instructs the Christians in Rome about the way of living that leads to life, as opposed to a lifestyle that is destined for death.
The three passages have life and death in common. Together they bear unanimous witness to the one who is the real source of life.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
This Old Testament passage is a mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar. It is familiar in the sense that most folks have probably heard of the story -- through the old African- American spiritual, if nothing else. It is entirely unfamiliar, however, in the sense that what Ezekiel witnessed must have been a sight like nothing we have ever seen before.
He describes it as a valley that was "full of bones." It is worth observing that the valley was not full of skeletons. That would suggest something more orderly and human than the sight that confronted Ezekiel. For this was not merely a scene of death, but of complete devastation. This was not a collection of corpses or skeletons, but rather a horrifying landscape of dismembered bodies.
Ezekiel observes that "they were very dry." One more detail bearing witness to how completely dead these people were. For they were not just dead; evidently they had been dead for a very long time.
It might seem hyperbolic, at first blush, to refer to someone or something as really dead. Yet, in our day, we would have to concede that it's a fair diagnosis. After all, we certainly know of instances of people who have been dead briefly, only to be revived. By contrast, someone who died a week ago is, we might say, really dead -- that is, they are beyond resuscitation.
Well, what Ezekiel saw was really dead. Dead, dismembered, and dry. There was no hope for resuscitation here.
Interesting, too, is the fact that Ezekiel does not get to see this scene from a safe distance. Rather, the Lord "set me down in the middle of a valley" and then "led me all around them." It was an up-close-and-personal walking tour of death that Ezekiel experienced.
In the end, of course, we see the meaning behind the experience, with all of those elements. Ezekiel is a prophet among the Jewish exiles in Babylon. He is not removed from them; rather, he is set down in the midst of them. He walks among them. They, in a sense, are very dead.
Perhaps we and our congregations have known some refugees along the way -- individuals and families who have been forced to flee from some country where the conditions were too dangerous to survive. We have seen how they look back on their homeland as a great tragedy. What has become of it -- whether by political turmoil, by war, by famine, or by natural disaster -- grieves their hearts.
These Jewish exiles had all of that; but there was still more. They were not refugees. They had not fled the devastation of their homeland to a place of safety. Rather, they were taken by force from their homeland by the very agents of that devastation. They had not found new life in a new land. Rather, they lived an existence of grief. The life and home they had known were dead; their glorious past and proud heritage were dead; their hopes for the future were dead; and for all of that, they might as well have been dead, too.
That is the setting in which Ezekiel walked in the midst. It was to that congregation of despair that he prophesied.
"Can these bones live?" God asked Ezekiel. It was an absurd question, an impossible prospect. And God knew that was the attitude of Ezekiel's contemporaries: "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost."
But absurd, impossible, and hopeless are insufficient obstacles where God is involved. And so, sure enough, these bones can live!
Romans 8:6-11
The NRSV translation of verse 6 may be slightly misleading. "To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." That rendering suggests that the original Greek utilizes the infinitive form of whatever the verb is for "setting the mind." In fact, however, a fascinating noun -- fron-ay-mah -- rather than any verb is employed. The noun is used only three times in the entire New Testament, and all three occurrences are found in this eighth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans (vv. 6, 7, and 27).
Bauer-Danker's Lexicon defines this unusual term as a "way of thinking, mind(- set)," as well as "aim, aspiration, striving." And so we might juxtapose "the way the flesh thinks" with "the way the Spirit thinks." Or we might compare the "aspiration of the flesh" with "the aspiration of the Spirit."
This might be a fruitful individual exercise: Invite people, perhaps during a silent time of prayer, to consider before God what it is the flesh strives for. That might lead to confession, as well as useful insight into the stealth struggles, which go on within us, and which so often defeat us and bring us down. After inviting the individual worshipers to give the matter some thought, we might share Paul's own list from his letter to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these" (5:19-21a).
The flesh does not deliberately aspire to death -- that would be nonsensical and self- destructive. Yet Paul insists that that's where the flesh leads. His point is reminiscent of the Proverb: "There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death" (Proverbs 14:12).
Furthermore, the dichotomy that Paul proposes echoes Moses' parting exhortation: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
In our day, it might be a useful metaphor to think of two different online resources for getting directions -- Google, Yahoo, MapQuest, Randy McNally, or some such. Imagine that you enter the same destinations into both, but one resource consistently gets you lost, while the other one consistently gets you to your goal. How long would it be before you'd abandon the one and use exclusively the other?
The human being enters destinations like "happiness," "fulfillment," and "contentment" into the flesh. The flesh has a certain way of trying to get to those destinations, but it always results in being lost. Enter those same goals into the Spirit, however, and it will get you safely and successfully there.
Paul refers to people being either "in the flesh" or "in the Spirit." It is probably a different expression and image for the same truth identified above -- such as having the mindset of the flesh or the mindset of the Spirit. The advantage of this imagery over the earlier one, however, is that we see the issue here as more than just an intellectual or attitudinal matter. Instead, we see ourselves as living within a context: either an environment of flesh or an environment of the Spirit. That, in turn, may lead to yet another time for reflective, silent prayer: asking God to help us identify individually how we do create and perpetuate an environment of the flesh and, conversely, how we might better cultivate an environment of the Spirit for ourselves.
Finally, though Paul's language and reasoning are sometimes difficult to follow, in the end we see a certain logic. I am invited no longer to live in the flesh, which leads to death; but, rather, I am encouraged to live in the Spirit, which leads to life. As I do live in the Spirit, then the Spirit is in me. And the Spirit that is in me, then, gives life to my flesh!
John 11:1-45
It seems almost unfair to assign a preacher this entire passage for a single Sunday. Tell the art lover to walk through the Louvre, but take just an hour to do it. How can you and I do justice to all that this story reveals in just one sermon?
First, there are the characters. We know a bit about Mary and Martha from the familiar episode in Luke (10:38-42) where each woman earns her reputation. And John reveals a bit more about Mary here by anticipating the episode in the following chapter when Mary anointed Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. We do not know so much about Lazarus, although he is at the center of this event.
Then there is the timing. Jesus learns about Lazarus' illness in time to prevent his death, but he waits deliberately before going to Bethany. This is not an isolated event in scripture. How many times would his people have expected his deliverance to come sooner than it did? Couldn't he have rescued Shadrach and company before they were actually thrown into the fire (Daniel 3)? Why did he slumber while his disciples were panicking in the midst of the storm at sea (Luke 8:22-25)? Why did he seem to delay in responding to the urgent pleading of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:22-28)? The next generation of Christians evidently wondered about his timing, too (see 2 Peter 3:1-9).
Next, there is the mysterious statement of purpose. "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." The comment is reminiscent of his earlier remarks about the man who had been born blind (see John 9:1-5). It raises for us the beautiful prospect of a God for whom difficulties become merely the backdrop for his marvelous work.
Then comes the poignant encounters with the two grieving sisters. We are led to believe by the Luke episode that the two women are quite different. But in their loss, they experience precisely the same faith crisis: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (Martha in v. 21 and Mary in v. 32). They -- along with the other observers who raise the same point (v. 37) -- embody the burden that comes with believing. If we did not believe in the first place that Jesus could do anything for sick Lazarus, then we would not be disturbed by Jesus' inaction. No other guest at the funeral is second-guessed like Jesus. It is only those who have faith in the first place, you see, who are subject to a faith crisis.
Equally poignant is the image of Jesus weeping by the tomb (v. 35). The power of God does not preempt his compassion. The fact that he can raise Lazarus from the dead does not make Jesus blasé about his death or dismissive of his friends' grief. He does not say, in one moment, "I am the resurrection and the life," and in the next moment, "So knock off all the crying and whining!" No, but rather, he declares that he is resurrection and life, and then he weeps alongside those who have suffered a death.
In the midst of the somber scene, Martha provides unintended comic relief. Whatever the occasion, we are always human, and we always are who we are. On the verge of Jesus' greatest miracle to date, Martha is concerned about the offensive smell that will ensue from removing the stone. Have we kept him from bringing life and healing to some area of our lives because we are embarrassed by the stench?
Then comes the moment -- Jesus calls into the tomb and commands Lazarus to come out. Surely this is the great epitome of both Jesus' love and his authority: that he calls Lazarus by name, on the one hand, and that he can give orders to corpses, on the other. John reports that Jesus "cried with a loud voice." Is this a foreshadowing of the "cry of command" that will cause the dead to rise at Christ's return (1 Thessalonians 4:16)?
At the end, the wonderful denouement: "Unbind him, and let him go." The grave clothes were appropriate for the previous four days, and they were not able to hinder the raising of the dead. But now it was no longer time for Lazarus to be dressed like a dead man. He had to be set free from that so that he could go forth as he now was: alive. So the Christian, having found new life in Christ, does well to ask what grave clothes ought to be shed in order to live anew.
And, in the midst of all the rest, there is the grand pinnacle of the episode: Jesus' self- revelation. "I am the resurrection and the life." It is one of the characteristic "I am" statements of Jesus in the fourth gospel, and it alone deserves a sermon all to itself.
Application
It's a fascinating question that the Lord asks Ezekiel. After all, one would naturally expect the dialogue to be reversed.
When we sit in the doctor's office, in the wake of a frightening diagnosis, he does not say to us, "Well, is there anything that can be done? Is there any hope? Will you survive this?" No, we ask those questions of the doctor.
Ezekiel has no capacity to reassemble and resuscitate a landscape of scattered bones. So why is God asking him if they can live? The question is not only nonsensical; it is misplaced.
But it is only a variation on the question that Jesus asks the grieving sister in the gospel lection. He has assured Martha that her brother "will rise again." She responds initially by expressing her confidence in "the resurrection on the last day." But Jesus reinterprets the resurrection, making it not an event but a person. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die," he tells her. And then comes the question: "Do you believe this?"
It's true, of course, whether she believes it or not. But what the Lord is able to do in her life may well depend upon what she believes. So it was, after all, for the faithless Israelites at the border of the promised land (see Deuteronomy 1:26-36) and for the incredulous people of Nazareth (see Mark 6:2-6).
And that is the crux of the matter for Ezekiel, as well. After all, God's question was not: "Ezekiel, can you make these bones live?" No, for the responsibility of accomplishing the impossible did not fall to Ezekiel; only the responsibility to believe that God could do the impossible.
So, the question comes to us. Some bones that are close to home -- these, not those. Some situation that seems hopeless: dead, dismembered, and dry, and the Lord asks us whether these bones can live, whether there is hope in the wasteland of hopelessness, and whether we believe.
We look around us, and everything about the circumstances tells us, "No." But we look at the scriptures -- Ezekiel's valley of people brought back to life, the dead-and-gone Lazarus walking back out of the tomb, and the Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead -- and they all tell us, "Yes! These bones can live!"
Alternative Application
Ezekiel 37:1-14. "Preaching About Preaching." Some pastors hesitate to do or say anything that promotes the Sunday morning sermon. Some insecurity about their own preaching, some wounds from an unappreciative culture or congregation, or some sense of personal modesty inhibits them, and so they don't want to make their preaching seem like a big event.
But it is a big event, and perhaps this week might be a good opportunity to affirm it.
I do not pretend that my preaching is a big event because of me. Whatever the merits of my creativity, my insight, or my delivery might be, preaching is not a big event because of me. Rather, it is in spite of me.
Dating all the way back to Paul and Barnabas' visit to Lystra, audiences have been tempted to misunderstand the importance of the preacher (see Acts 14:8-18). But imagine that tomorrow's mail brought a very important letter. Would you make a great fuss over the mail carrier?
Preaching is important, not because of the messenger, but because of the message.
This week's passage from Ezekiel is, tangentially at least, a passage about preaching. For the prophet was instructed to prophesy to bones and to breath, and that original death valley came to life. Ezekiel was not instructed to assemble all of the bones by hand. Neither was he set aside entirely while God worked the whole miracle himself. Instead, the prophet had a role in what God wanted to do and that role was to speak what God had instructed him to speak.
We are presented with a magnificent picture of preaching. The preacher speaks at God's call and command. God works the miracles, and the words that are proclaimed give life.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 130
Forgiveness is a concept common to most everyone. It covers a vast landscape, to be sure. In biblical understanding it is especially broad, linking together economic, social, divine, and interpersonal realities. Indeed, it is pervasive and foundational to Judeo- Christian faith. However, in our contemporary world we cling with worn fingernails to forgiveness as a sparse, seldom used interpersonal notion. If utilized, it comes when two people have a quarrel, and one forgives the other -- simple -- clean -- easy -- not too intrusive.
Yet, for people of faith, this cannot be the case. Forgiveness is the ground upon which we walk. It is the air we breathe and the eyes through which we see. It is integral, not only to our self-understanding but to our apprehension of God. Forgiveness is not just the stock and trade of faith, it has to do with the fiber of human reality.
Human beings need forgiveness. We need it because we are broken, flawed, and frail. We need it because, as the middle schooler in church wryly comments, "we mess up a lot." The words of this psalm go directly to this point.
With a full and painful awareness of culpability and responsibility the writer comes clean. If God kept score, none of us could stand (v. 4). How true it is.
But with God, there is forgiveness. Not a trite burying of the hatchet; not a sweeping under the rug of past hurts and insults, and not the strained fabric of denial, but true and miraculous forgiveness. For this, the soul will "wait." For this, the spirit dares to "hope."
True forgiveness changes things. It wipes clean the slate of anger and hurt. It breathes fresh air onto old wounds so that they can heal. It lifts the burden of guilt and allows for new beginnings. Yet, such powerful new possibilities are seldom realized in the wake of a narrow and self-absorbed notion of forgiveness.
Perhaps a fresh reading of this psalm can expand our understanding of forgiveness to include each and every aspect of the lives we lead together. Maybe if each person stopped to "wait" upon God's grace and forgiveness, a whole world of new opportunities might present themselves. Imagine what would happen in this nation if the idea of forgiveness reached into the economic realm? Forgiveness of debts in a debt-ridden world? It would be nothing short of revolutionary.
Picture, too, a world where the great social sins were answered, not with even greater sins, but forgiveness. We need only look to the Truth and Justice Commission of South Africa to see that such a thing can happen. Finally, it stirs the soul to conjure up a world where interpersonal relationships were marked with the practice of a true and transformational forgiveness.
There is indeed forgiveness with you, O Lord! And while we wait, let us dare to practice this divine art across the spectrum of our lives.
