A New Year’s Day Sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14​

 

As we journey into a new year so much will depend upon how we see the world around us & the weariness within us. So I invite you to settle in, drop your shoulders, release any heaviness you may be carrying, any busy-ness that’s pressing in the corners of your mind, distractions stretching wide to take up space in your heart. Our physical posture often impacts our spiritual posture, our openness. Take a breath in and out, now a deeper one and exhale. We breathe approx 22,000 times a day: that’s about 15 times a minute; each of us will breathe about 900 times during our worship service today — if you’re a math person wanting to work out that equation. I encourage you to be mindful of your breathing, in and out, this rhythm of life that sustains us. And come journey with me in the valley of dry bones. 

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When we are honest with ourselves, with one another, we have been in that place that feels impossibly heavy, when it hurts just to breathe. When it is less painful to become numb than to feel the extent of tragedy and loss. When we are exiled from the refuge & safety of belonging, of community, not at home in ourselves, no longer sure of who we are, when the certainty of our faith has been crowded with doubts & shadows. And we say “our hope is lost. We are cut off completely.” We fall into despair. When we are searching to find our way to peace with God, with others, with ourselves. But God is nowhere to be found. When instead of finding God we find ourselves plunged into darkness.

 

And yet. Sometimes. It is in the darkest moments we see Light most clearly. 

 

Ezekiel is writing to a people familiar with darkness. It is approx 600 BC. The southern Kingdom has fallen. Their temple has been destroyed, their holy city plundered, their leaders maimed and put in chains. They are now captives, defeated, refugees, exiled, exploited. Ezekiel is a priest or rather was a priest. For there is no need for priests without a temple… and after all according to their theology at the time, Yahweh was defeated. Their covenant broken. Without a King on David’s throne, without their promised land. Their living witness, everything around them, pointed to an aimless existence, without a hope, without a future. Asking Where is God? What in God’s Name is happening? Literally. 

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The valley where the vision takes place is eerie enough, since it is full of bones, but things get even more spine-tingling when God leads him through and around all of those bones thoroughly (Hebrew sabib sabib, “around (and) around”). There are thousands of bones for Ezekiel to wade through (each human body has over 200 bones). If you’re married to a nurse, they will know exactly how many bones. These bodies have been dead a long time, exposed to the elements, for only God knows how long.

 

Ezekiel’s audience would resonate with this image, a valley of dry bones, in a profound way. A scene of defeat, death, destruction, desolation. Of bone, ash, ruin. Of deep grief. The word bereaved used to describe someone deep in grief comes from an olde English word that means “to be torn apart, limb from limb.” Here in a valley of dry bones. Limbs torn from limbs. Pieces of skeletons scattered across this landscape. A place that speaks of shame, bodies without proper burial. Here in a place of grief beyond weeping. 

 

It’s important to name that Ezekiel doesn’t stand in the valley of the dry bones and leap into platitudes or force a positivity that ignores the reality. He doesn’t say “it’s not that bad. They’re only mostly dead. Just gotta have more faith. Everything happens for a reason.” He doesn’t offer words that cheapen or minimize this scene of hopelessness. His response models for us a faithfulness from the ashes of what seems to be lost. He says, “God only You know.” My Lord, YHWH, you, you know” (verse 3b). The second“you” in this verse is unnecessary in the Hebrew and signals emphasis in some way. Perhaps it is better translated as: “You may know the answer to that question, LORD; I definitely don’t!” This invites us to note that “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer and response in our lives of faith. 

 

Too often we rush past our discomfort to find the word of comfort. We would rather hear the word of promise, of resurrection, of restoration, healing, wholeness. But as we approach our sacred scriptures, we must ask ourselves to be as brave as these stories we tell. To enter the story, to be a part of the story. So we ask questions like: What can we learn from lingering just a moment longer in this place? What are the spiritual dry bones we might find? Where in our hearts, in our stories are weary to the point we’ve abandoned all hope? Where do we say “it is finished and done” — when God sees a new beginning? 

 

Ezekiel is able to see both the desolation around him AND hear the voice of God call him toward Hope. A hope that is filled with grit, determination & tears. A hope that lifts its face from the shadows of grief to the promise of new life. But how? The answer for Ezekiel is the same for us today. It is the breath, the word, the spirit of God that brings life. 

 

The first mention of Ruach in the Bible is in the very first chapter of Genesis – Genesis 1:2 to be exact: And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit (Ruach) of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

 

Speaking to the Hebrew people in their desert wilderness, Moses stresses that the same God who led them out of bondage by the divine ruach (Exod 15:8–10) also made the heavens and the earth by that same spirit (ruach, and that the power behind the original creation is also now at work) in the creation of the people of God through deliverance. 

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The ruach is present in the Psalms, the songs of faith

 Psalm 51:11 when David prayed:

“Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take your Ruach from me.” 

Psalm 139 Where shall I go from your Spirit?

    Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

    and the light about me be night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you.

 

And here in Ezekiel 37, it is the Spirit of the Living God that gave life to the dry bones, physical and spiritual life. 

 

This is the story we must tell, the truth of who we are as a people of faith.  From even before the dawn of creation, before morning has broken like the first morning. It is the Spirit of God we find hovering over the face of deep when all is dark & void. From the first light of the first dawn. When humanity is made out of dust it is the same Spirit of God that breathes life into humanity in the garden. The Spirit of God delivers the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, guides & sustains them in their desert wilderness wandering. The same Spirit in the Psalms that calls everything that has breath to praise the Lord. The Spirit goes before us, behind us, beside, yes within us, closer than our next breath. 

 

This same Spirit of God moves in the Lazarus story. This Spirit was breathed into Christ crucified, raising him up to resurrection life. This Spirit came upon the early Church at Pentecost, comes to us in our baptism and calls to us even now to live renewed, restored, fully alive, fully free with holy hope. (Romans 8:11). For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, there is peace, there is joy and yes, there is hope. 

 

We long to find hope, to hold onto hope. At last we see. Hope is holding onto us. And Love carries us, keeps us, sustains us, strengthens us — even when (especially when) we are weary to the bone. And it is indeed the Spirit breathing resurrection life. Yes, even into the dry bones. In you, in me. And the same God who said “let there be light” to the darkness, to the nothingness, to the void — still says “let there be light” to the darkness, to the nothingness, to the void… in you, in me, in us. And the Spirit that breathes resurrection hope and promise, anew to our dry bones — loves us out of darkness back to light yet again. 

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So now — Take a breath in and out, now a deeper one and exhale. 

We breathe approx 22,000 times a day: that’s about 15 times a minute.

Imagine with me. If we cultivated an awareness of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life, breathing in/with us. 22,000 times a day. Breathing in that presence of God with us as, each time we breathe. Can we be as brave as these stories we tell? What if our sacred scriptures aren’t stories we read, but promises we live? 

 

Let us trade the dust from the valley of the dry bones for the dust that covers us when we follow after Jesus close enough that we are covered by the dust of His feet. For we follow a risen Savior as a people of resurrection hope. This is our God. This is our sacred story. And this is our hope. That as we breathe in and out, the Spirit of the Living God is as close as our next breath, breathing with/in us. 22,000 times a day. So ahead and take that next breath. The story continues. With us.