Dinosaurs fascinate me. Those ancient beasts which once upon a time roamed this planet, foraging for food and terrorizing smaller creatures. You’ve seen them on the late movies, enormous reptiles, roaring and raring up on their hind legs, grabbing the pretty girl between those giant jaws and lumbering off down the mountainside so that our hero can rescue her just before sign-off time!
Dinosaurs. Their very names suggest power and terrible strength. Brontosaurus. Tyrannosaurus rex. Stegosaurus. Barney. Well, maybe not Barney.
Now, let me ask you, how do we know what the dinosaurs looked like? We don’t have any running around to look at any more; we just have fossil remains. Occasional footprints, bones, sometimes a bit of a skeleton, embedded in the rock. And with those fossil fragments, scientists are able to reconstruct what they think the dinosaur looked like when it was alive. You can go down to the Natural History museum; and you will find there a creature that has been reconstructed for you. It has been put together out of bone fragments and educated imagination! A vertebra here, a toe there, a jaw up on this end, and a whole lot of plaster and clay that represents what the scientists think the original dinosaur looked like. They don’t really know, you understand; it’s a guess, and every now and again they get some more evidence, and they have to change their guesses and reconstruct their reconstructions. Makes you wonder!
But we have to give them this. We have to admit this much. That when they have taken a few bones and a lot of plaster and clay and super glue, the end result looks good. It really looks good. It looks impressive. It looks as though it could leap off the display stand and prowl the halls of the museum. It looks as though it could turn and invite you to lunch, that is, if you will be the lunch. These rebuilt, imaginary, plaster and clay and guesswork dinosaurs do look good.
There’s just one thing wrong with them. There’s just one big, big problem. What is it?
They don’t breathe. They aren’t alive. They have no life in them. They look good; but there’s just one thing missing: life.
Some folks say that the church is like that dinosaur. Some folks argue that churches are made up of fragments: a few women and children, some old folks hoping against hope, the ignorant and the poor. That’s what some say the church is.
And the church, it is said, is like that dinosaur in that it is kind of unreal. It isn’t living in the real world. It is a relic of the forgotten past, held together by superstition, kept in place by tradition, and whipped into submission by threats. Some say that the church is a dinosaur, which has long since outlived its usefulness, and is just plain dead.
Oh, it may look good. It may be a patchwork reconstruction of little fragments from the past. But it isn’t real. It isn’t going anywhere. And it isn’t alive. That’s what they are saying out there. What do you think?
The prophet Ezekiel takes us today to the valley of the dry bones. In his mind’s eye he sees a horrible place, where the bones of long-dead warriors lie in the hot sun, scattered all around. It’s an image of death and hopelessness. Just endless piles of dry bones. No hope, no life there.
And in his vision, Ezekiel hears the Lord ask him, "Man, can these bones live?" "Can these bones live?" What would you have answered? Not too likely, wouldn’t you say? Not much hope.
But then the Lord says to Ezekiel, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ’0 dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ... I will cause breath to enter you ... and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. ’"
Can these bones ... our bones, our dinosaur, our church ... can these bones live?
I
Notice first that Ezekiel sees the bones coming back together from their separateness. They return from disconnectedness. It’s a picture, of disconnected bones reconnecting, scattered bones finding one another.
"Suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone."
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen pictures of some of the charnel houses, or burying rooms, of ancient monasteries. In some of the monasteries, like St. Catherine’s on Mount Sinai, when the monks die, and after their flesh decays, the bones are separated and placed in piles. The skulls in one place, the legs in another, and so on. A gruesome sight! Horrible!
But it’s God showing us the disconnectedness of His people. It’s picture of our sheer individualism, in which we cut ourselves off from one another and separate ourselves. And Ezekiel says that one of the gifts God wants to give His people is to reconnect us. His Spirit will give us to each other.
You see, there is always a tendency in evangelical Christianity to become completely individualistic. We can get so wrapped up in our feelings about ourselves, and we forget how important it is to connect with one another. Just think about some of the songs we sing: "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine." "He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock." And the granddaddy of them all: "I Come to the Garden Alone ... and He walks with me and talks with me and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known" How self-absorbed can you get?
Now far be it from me to tamper with that song if it is one of your favorites. It is lovely, and it is wonderfully intimate. But do you see the problem? The problem is that we think of our faith as so personal that it has become private. So personal that it has become private. And personal and private are not the same thing.
I simply want to say to you this morning, that in a congregation like ours, filled as it is with many private people, quiet, private people, we may lose out on something very wonderful. We need each other. We need a fellowship of strength and support, we need a community of care and of mission, and God’s gift is not just the gift of individual salvation. God’s gift is the gift of connectedness and community.
I just think about some recent events. I think about two funerals I’ve done. I think about one I did recently that was attended by a grand total of seven people. That’s really too bad. Disconnected. And then I think about Bill Garrett’s funeral, not only about the well over 400 people who were here for the service, but more, about the folks who sat in the hospital, who sent cards and food and gifts, who prayed and wept. What a contrast! What a difference! And what a difference it makes, when you hit a brick wall, to be a part of a community that can cushion you! Connectedness is a gift God wants to give us.
Maybe it would be a good idea if instead of singing "I come to the Garden alone" we were to sing "What a fellowship, what a joy divine." Maybe instead of singing "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine", we should even sing that fun song from Ezekiel, you know, the one that says toe bone connected to the foot bone, foot bone connected to the ankle bone ... and so on." Thought you might not think that was very worshipful. But it’s better than meism. It’s better than sheer individualism.
God’s first reviving gift to His people is to give them connectedness, to give us each other and to help us reconnect with one another.
"Suddenly there was a noise, and rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone." Looking good now. Looking good. But there is more.
II
Notice next that Ezekiel gives us a picture of a body come back together in wholeness. The gift of God for His people is completeness. It’s not just a matter of putting the bones back together and leaving them as a skeleton like you might find in an anatomy lab. It’s that God’s gift to his people is to flesh them out and put meat on the bones. God’s gift to His people, God’s reviving gift, is to attach to the mere skeleton everything else that it needs. The gift of wholeness.
"I looked, and there were sinews on [the bones], and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them.”
Not only does our God revive His church by pulling us together in connectedness; He also gives His church the gift of wholeness. He gives His church the ability to embrace many different things. Many different redemptive things.
Let me speak with you a little bit about church life.
The most divisive issue in the Christian church today is "what kind of church do you want?" "What kind of church do you want?" Are you going to be an evangelistic church, trying to preach salvation and trying to get persons to acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior? Or are you going to be a serving church; are you going to do ministry in your community and help people find solutions for the problems they face? Or, maybe, if you are not going to be an evangelistic church and you are not going to be a serving church, are you going to be a reflective church? Maybe your choice is for a church which focuses Bible study and on good, solid teaching. Or, what else is there? Maybe you would prefer to be an exciting, celebrating church? Do you want to be the kind of church where the music lifts you out of your seats and the preaching lifts you out of your doldrums and the ushers lift a goodly offering out of your pockets? What kind of church do you want?
I’ll tell you what I want: all of the above. All of the above, and more. I believe with all my heart that the gifts of God are not for one and only one kind of thing, but that God wants to give us the gift of breadth and of depth. I believe that God wants to give us the ability to be redemptive, the ability to make a difference, in all sorts of ways.
Can I share my heart for a moment? Can I just tell you where I’d like to lead you in the years to come? I want our church to have more than just a skeleton. I want our church to have all of God’s gifts: sinews and flesh and skin. I want our church to be comprehensive. I want us to do ministry, serving the human needs of people here around us, and at the same time I want us to do evangelism and tell them the good news of salvation. And I want our church to be scholarly, studying God’s word in a serious, careful way; but I also want our church to be warm and exciting, I want our worship to be uplifting and joyous, musically sensitive and spiritually authentic. More, I want our church to do missions and see the whole world as our place of service. I want it all. I do not concede one inch! I do not believe that there is anything to which God calls us that we should leave out! I want it all!
And I hope you do too. I hope you want your church to grow and to serve and to teach and do all the rest. I hope you’re ready to work hard! Sinew and flesh and skin on the bones. Looking good, right? Looking and being very good, right?
But remember. The dinosaur. Looking good; but just one more thing.
III
Just one more thing. We’ve gotten the scattered bones to come together, and reconnect, and that looks good. But there is more.
We’ve gotten some meat on the bones, too. Like the scientists who fill in the gaps on the dinosaur with guesswork flesh and guesswork skin, we’ve gotten our church fleshed out with a whole program, with ministries and with evangelism, with Bible study and with counseling, with music and with missions. It’s looking good now, isn’t it?
There’s just one more thing. Just one more thing.
And that is life. Vitality. Breath to animate the flesh-covered skeleton. Life to fill the dinosaur.
Ezekiel saw the bones come together; he then saw sinew and flesh and skin come on them. They looked pretty good. But there was just one thing. He says it: “There was no breath in them."
And so the Lord said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the breath, man, and say to the breath; thus says the Lord God, ’come from the four winds, 0 breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude."
The truth is that this our church could look good, very good, and still be dead. We can have the finest building, the greatest organ, the greenest lawn, and the cleanest carpets, and still be dead. Some of the cities of Europe are dominated by great cathedral churches, monuments to a faith long gone, nobody comes any more. Without the Spirit, they are dead.
We can have the perfect organization, the sharpest workers, the most talented musicians, and the soundest curriculum, and still be simply and thoroughly dead. A dinosaur. They say that the sure sign that an organization is dying is that it spends its energy re-organizing. It creates wonderful organization charts and writes careful mission statements so that folks won’t get in each other’s way doing things ... when all along the problem is that nobody is trying to do anything anyway. It has no spirit. It is dead.
For the one thing lacking is the presence and the spirit of the living God. The one thing more that can never be written off is the energy, the love, the power of the Spirit. It is He who brings life to the church, it is He who gives power to His people. And without Him, everything we attempt is going to be obsolete, dusty, and dead before it starts. We may look good; but we are a dinosaur without Him.
So my question today, bottom line, is very simple. What is your passion? Where is your heart? Do you pray intensely, constantly, for your church? Do you ask the Spirit so to move that every week, every Sunday, somebody will respond to the invitation? Do you pray with clarity and tenacity, so that when we think we have felt God’s leadership to do something, we will not let it go until He blesses us? Men and women, the key to the life of the church is prayer. The key to the vitality of this congregation is to seek the face of the Lord, believing that if we ask for power, He will give power.
And one thing more. Just one more thing. Where is your personal passion? What is your heart for yourself? What is the truth about you? Do you feel dead, all dry bones and dust? Or do you know the fresh, rushing wind of the Spirit, that can take all your dusty, obsolete, worn-out, hopeless, habitual, weariness, and turn you into a multitude standing on our feet and witnessing to His glory?
Oh, the church looks good. Just one more thing. Life. And you look good too. Just one more thing. Have you asked for it?
