Can These Bones Live?

Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Ezekiel 37:1-14

(April 20, 2003 Easter Sermon Transcript)

        Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

        From the prophet Ezekiel, these words are written:

        Dear friends in Christ, on this day of resurrection, I must tell you that we have no idea of the location of the valley to which the spirit impelled the prophet Ezekiel. We there, though, that God seems to have taken him on some kind of a tour of that dry valley out in the midst of the desert wilderness with sunbaked soil and sunbleached bones.

        And from end of the valley to the other, the scriptures tell us, that valley was full of bones. Broken and mixed up bones that were very dry. It seems that, indeed, it had been a very long time since these particular people had died.

        And then God asks an astonishing question. "Son of man, (you Ezekiel, son of Adam) can these bones live?"

        Now human reason would say, "That’s an absurd question! That is absolutely, patently ridiculous! Of course they can’t!", we would think. But Ezekiel is not prone to put God in a box built by human reason. And so he leaves room for God to do as He pleases, and he answers, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

        Today, and often, we have the exquisite pain of gathering at the graves of loved ones. We stand there, feeling the sense of loss, and knowing sometimes that comfort is not within easy grasp. And at that point in time, maybe it would be appropriate to ask the question the Lord asks of Ezekiel, son of man. Can these bones live?

        And again, we would say, "What a stupid question! They’re dead! They’re not coming back! Everything dies, we know that!" But perhaps we should not leave room for human reason to be controlling this. Perhaps, like Ezekiel, we should let God be God, and we should say with the prophet, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

        Death was not at all, was not in the least bit the intent of God at the creation of man. Indeed, it seems that death is an abnormality, as indeed it is, for it is not what God had in mind.

        I assure you, I’ve stood at enough gravesites, and have been present at two gruesome airplane crashes, and I can tell you. Death is not natural. It’s ugly. People say sometimes rather silly things. That people should die a "dignified death". Well, I have yet to see one, regardless of the circumstances. Death is just unnatural and ugly and that’s all there is to it.

        There’s something more that the people of God realize when they stand at the grave. If they are knowledgeable about the word of God, they know that none of this had to happen. They know that death did not have to be! But rather, pride welled up inside humanity, and rather than settling (if you can call it "settling"), but rather than receiving the paradise that God had created for our first parents and all of their offspring, they chose instead rebellion. They chose instead to sell their birthright for a poor bowl of soup, which came in the guise of a temptation to become like God, knowing good and evil.

        And so here we are. Because of the foolish act. That rebellious act. That sinful act. All of us today continue to stand at gravesites and mourning is the rule of the day. And we are reminded of St. Paul’s words in Romans chapter 6 (v23) For the wages of sin is death..

        And reason looks at death and considers it the ends. I don’t think there is any "bones" we can make about that! It’s not difficult to discern the reasons, we’ve heard them all a thousand times. "Everything dies. It’s just the law of nature!" or "No one is ever offered any proof that there is life after death!" (except maybe in the scriptures!) "Eternal life is just a story we tell to make ourselves more comfortable in the face of death." You’ve heard them all, haven’t you?

        To use those words would be like Ezekiel standing before the presence of God, and when the question is asked, O Son of man, can these bones live?, he would say, "Nope! Sure can’t!" Because that’s what human reason says. But human reason has a problem. Human reason is bound by human experience and human knowledge. God is not!

        Indeed, I would suggest to you that He who speaks and brings creation into being, He who establishes the laws of nature, if you will, is not in any way bound by them, for He created them!

        It’s kind of amusing, don’t you think, in a way? Here we are, us highly intelligent, very sophisticated, highly technological twenty-first century human beings! And we can’t begin to get our arms and our minds around God! We cannot begin to understand how He works. We cannot even begin to understand His power. Nor even any of His other attributes. He is simply beyond anything we could possibly conceive of Him.

        The only way we know Him at all is because He reveals Himself to us, through His creation and through His word.

        Perhaps a better answer in the face of death would be, O Lord, you know.

        And then, to prove the point, consider the valley of the dry bones. That same human reason was certainly holding sway that first Easter morning. Three women going to a tomb, prepared to do a loving and kind, yet difficult task. Carrying with them about seventy-five pounds of embalming spices with which to anoint the fully expected dead body of Jesus, as was the custom of the day. And they minds were, shall we say, "occupied by the details of death".

        "Who will roll that stone away? It’s big and it’s heavy, and usually they roll downhill. To get them back uphill is more than difficult." Or perhaps they might have thought about the Roman guards who had been stationed there, and wondered if they might even be permitted to do what they had come to do.

        But it turns out, their fears were, shall we say, unnecessary. For when they arrived, they found some interesting news. The tomb they expected, the body they expected to find dead and stiff, was not found! The body was gone! There was nobody in the tomb! And we read about it in Matthew (28:5) when we read, The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."

        And you would think that such news would bring joy to faces, but it is not easy for sinful human beings to stand in the presence of holy angels, and we are told their reaction was not joy, but fear! And they ran away, as our gospel lesson said, and told nobody anything, at least not at first, because they were afraid.

        That’s what happens when sin confronts holiness. But it need not be.

        In the valley of the dry bones, God’s word was spoken. Spoken, interesting enough, not by Himself directly to the bones, but rather the instructions come to the prophet Ezekiel, Son of Adam, Son of Man, tell these bones to be alive. And the bones rattled, came together. And that which was considered absolutely absurd became a reality. And tendons and flesh attached themselves to the bones, and became established there. And skin covered them, and then secondly, the breath of life came into them, and they stood, a vast army, the whole house of Israel!

        A word about that. The scriptures make it very clear that we are part of Israel. That those of us who believe in Christ have been grafted into Israel, as the scriptures put it. When that army stands, he is not just talking about the people who had been occupying Palestine. Indeed, he is talking about us as well. We stand with that great and vast army which was dead and is now alive.

        Israel had suffered a sort of death. They had been hauled away captive into Babylon. And there, for seventy years were submitted to slavery and bondage. And now had come back. And the land had been destroyed and the temple torn down.

        And certainly as they had listened with their Jewish ears, they heard that God would call the nation back to life. But there’s something more here. Listen to the words again. O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.'"

        I assure you, those bones had no power within them to restore life in themselves. I assure you, and I promise you from the very pit and bottom of my soul, those bones could do nothing to redeem themselves, and neither did we.

        God’s word was spoken and life was given!

        We gather at the fount of Holy Baptism, and there the washing of regeneration which promises the forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. God called us to life through that word and sacrament and made us alive, now and forever. And we stand with the whole house of Israel.

        God’s word about all of this had been clear enough to the women, and to His followers. We remember the passage in Matthew 16 (21) when He says to them quite plainly and straight up-front, From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

        Linda often accuses me of selective listening. And she’s right. Sometimes we only want to hear what we want to hear. And we dismiss what we don’t want to hear. No matter how much credibility it may have. And even though the apostles and the disciples were repeatedly told what would happen, nobody seemed to believe it. Until Easter morning. And even then it took a while to sink in. It took repeated tellings of the story. It took disciples running back from the road to Emmaus who said they had walked with Jesus. It took Jesus showing up in the upper room, not once, but twice!

        How long will it take us to realize that when God speaks, life is given?

        You see, God’s word of death and life is meant for us. We deserve death, but what we have received is life. And we receive life because the one who deserved no punishment for sin received all the punishment for ours on Himself. And on the cross He suffers the eternal death that was coming to us, so that we wouldn’t have to.

        And what is more, those of us who deserve nothing more than eternal destruction and suffering are given, as a free gift, because of Christ, life! Life, validated and verified by His resurrection. Acceptable to our Father in heaven.

        And so are you!

        We who were walking dead men and women, have been called by the word of God back to life, as surely as the bones in the valley of death were made alive.

        Christ is risen!

        What has been dead has now been made alive! What was lost is now found! What did not make sense from human reason is a reality! And God has graciously given us life!

        In the Czech Republic there is a town called Kutnahora. And near that town is a chapel next to a cemetery. It is a remarkable chapel. In that area of Eastern Europe during the twelfth century, the Black Plague afflicted the entire continent of Europe, and literally millions have died. Tens of thousands of people died in that area. And today, if you go to that chapel and enter it, you will see interred there, as altar, and bells, and chandelier, and other appointments throughout the church, the bones of forty thousand people who perished in the Black Plague. Tourists come, and go in hushed silence out of respect for the dead. You can imagine what the inside of that church looks like.

        I’m here to tell those bones will live! I’m here to tell you that, on the day of resurrection, those bones will come to life! That will be a place of great joy for those whose hope is in Christ Jesus. And we will speak with those people, and we will know them, and we will be among them, and we will be family with them, now and forever.

        And the graveyards, whose loved ones’ graves at which we’ve stood, will be places of incredible activity and life! For all will be raised when Christ comes at the sound of the last trumpet. And Christ and His word will call us to life.

        And already has!

        Christ is risen!

        In the name of our risen Lord, Amen.