Ezekiel 37. 3 And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord GOD, You know." 4 Again He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
Introduction
We are all conditioned by life to believe that there is no overcoming death. This fact became reality for me many years ago when I was in high school. I worked at an airport doing a variety of things that were mostly uninteresting. One day was very different. A hearse came to the airport with a body of a man who had died suddenly in our town. His body needed to be flown to his home in another state. My boss asked me to help load the body that was lying on a stretcher and covered with a sheet. He took one side, and I took the other. The plane was small, and I knew this was going to take a little angling and adjusting to work. As we were straining and struggling to get this stretcher in the plane, the man’s right arm fell out from under the sheet and fell across my arms. It was the first time I had touched a dead body… Maybe I should say it was the first time a dead body touched me! My boss just about died laughing at this 17 year old kid who had turned white as a sheet.
According to human experience alone, death is the final act of life. There is no changing it. It is the end. There is nothing we can do but walk away and go on. Most people avoid thinking about death. But God wants us to think about it. He wants us to know that death is because of sin… “The wages of sin is death…” However He also wants us to know and believe that the one who imposed this sentence is also the one who can reverse it. As the passage continues… “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6.23). In another place God says, “There is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive…” (Deuteronomy 32.39). Will we believe this?
Ezekiel’s Situation
Ezekiel was a prophet of the Lord sent to resurrect the faith of God’s people. They were nothing but dry bones because of the punishments that God had imposed on them. They had turned away from Him to false religions that worshiped creatures instead of the Creator. They had forgotten the commandments to love their neighbors. And for all of this, God removed them from their land to Babylon and destroyed their temple. So now they sang, according to Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion.”
God gave Ezekiel a vision. There was a valley of bones, a valley of death. But God wanted to teach his prophet that death is not the end of life in His world. These bones could live. These people could stand again and serve the Lord. But how? Would it take some kind of magic? Some kind of secret incantation? No. It would only take the word of the Lord. God told Ezekiel to prophecy, which is really just another way of saying “preach.” Preach to the bones the word of the Lord. God showed Ezekiel and us that where the word of the Lord is so is God’s Spirit. Just as God’s word brought the world into existence in the first place at creation, so here, Ezekiel saw how the word of the Lord brought the dead to life.
Jesus’ Situation
Jump ahead six hundred years from the time of Ezekiel to the time of Jesus. A small remnant of people were still clinging to the hope that death is not the end. Two sisters, Mary and Martha, grieved because their brother Lazarus had died. Whenever someone dies, Satan wants us to give up. Satan wants us to crawl into our Babylon of hopelessness and to give up on God. Satan wants us to remember the first truth… “I kill…” And, “The wages of sin is death…” But he wants us to forget the second truth… “I make alive…” And, “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Now the world was ready to see. The world was ready to know. God keeps His promises. His word and His Spirit bring life from death. We are not to live under the condition that death is the end… That there is no hope. In a prequel to Easter Jesus came to the tomb of his friend Lazarus. There John says He wept. God knows that the first truth is painful. He knows far more than we that sin is a terrible thing that brings nothing but heartache, pain, and sadness. But then came the prophecy, the preaching, the Spirit of the Lord. Jesus simply said, “Lazarus, come forth.” If human beings are frightened by dead bodies moving, imagine the shock Lazarus must have given them. Still in his burial clothes and having been dead for four days, Lazarus appeared alive.
Our Situation
Are we any different than the people in Ezekiel’s time or in the time of Mary and Martha? We are not. We are constantly being conditioned that death will have the last word in this world. Satan wants us to believe that there is no overcoming the consequences of sin. This leads some people into debauchery. The pleasures of this life aren’t going to last forever. Death is coming sooner or later. As the ancients used to say, “Eat, drink and be merry…” Others pursue a dull life of simply trying to avoid pain, doing their best, and putting of the inevitable. Still others live in total despair. Their life on earth is a living hell. They might as well have Dante’s famous inscription at the entrance to hell over their lives, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
God’s word tells us otherwise. God’s word brings hope and life where despair and death would otherwise reign supreme. Friday night I had the opportunity to watch the Christ Kid’s Choir perform their play, “The Good News Cruise.” What a joy it was to see them portray the transition of a young man who began to realize that something was missing in his life. Without it there really wasn’t much hope. Only God’s word, and particularly, God’s Son, has the power to reverse the inevitable progress of sin, decay and death that are undeniably the stark realities of this life. The Spirit in the Valley of Dry Bones, and the Lazarus prequel gives way to the Good Friday and Easter morning of Jesus. Sins are forgiven through the blood and the suffering and the death of Jesus… “I kill” and “The wages of sin is death.” But… “I make alive” and “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Conclusion
How can it be that dead bones can live by the Spirit and the word in Jesus Christ? I do not know how this is possible. But I believe that God is creative and powerful and capable of doing the very thing that we think is so impossible. I like this little story that always helps me to remember that.
God told a river to flow through a very dry desert to finally arrive at the sea. The river complained to God that it could never make it. It would dry up in the desert and die. But in the end the river trusted God. It changed its course and made a valiant attempt to flow through the desert. Halfway through it dried up and stopped. But the water of the river evaporated and formed clouds… clouds that gently sailed over the rest of that barren desert and did, through the help of the wind, arrive at the sea. The clouds turned into rain, and in that beautiful but unexpected way made it to the sea.
Can these bones live? Is there anything that overcomes the relentless desert of death in this world? There is. It is God’s word in Christ and the Holy Spirit that brings us down in repentance and raises us up in faith, in life, in salvation. Amen.
Note: Ezekiel was a very important prophet to the people of Israel during the Babylonian Captivity. Being both a priest and a prophet gave Ezekiel a special status among the Israelites. In much of his work he had to convince the people of Israel that their captivity was not a minor setback soon to be reversed. This was a serious punishment from God. Ezekiel used more “props” than any other prophet. He used a brick to portray the city of Jerusalem under siege. His wife was taken from him, and he was forbidden to mourn for her to portray how Israel would be stunned at the news of the fall of Jerusalem. Because of these bizarre illustrations the Jews were not to read Ezekiel until the age of 30. Ezekiel also promised and end to the captivity and encouraged Israel to remain steadfast in their faith. In a large part of the book he describes a new temple. This new temple is not one that will be built someday by men. It is too unusual for that. It points to Jesus, who became a new temple for us.
