Scripture can be found here…
This is not your usual Pentecost text. And I love the usual Pentecost text—there is nothing quite like a story of a bunch of people hunkered down in one room, afraid to go out, trying to figure out their next steps, when wind and flames and the Holy Spirit dove herself rouse them out of their stupor, set them on fire (spiritually speaking), and chase them out into the world to tell everyone how much God loves them. I love that story. I love that part of our history—that birthday origins story of the church.
But here we are today with a story that seems more connected to Halloween celebrations, or maybe our own local phenomenon Boris-the-Skeleton. This is a strange story. But somehow, this year, I find myself drawn to it, because this is a story of hope, not Halloween.
Let’s begin at the beginning. In the year 597 BCE, Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar sent his vast army to attack Jerusalem. The siege lasted for two years, and resulted in famine, disease, and despair. The Babylonians killed many of the residents outright, sent the rest into exile. They burned Jerusalem to the ground, razing the Temple, which the Israelites understood to be God’s Holy Sanctuary on earth, a one-of-a-kind dwelling, without which they had no place to worship.
Ezekiel had been a priest-in-training when the siege began; by the time it was over, he was a priest-in-exile, a priest without a Temple. His wife was dead. Neither he nor anyone else in the house of Israel had a clue as to when or whether they would ever be able to return home.
Ezekiel is prophet to a people who have been traumatized. He is commissioned to bring a word of hope to those who have sustained terrible losses… human losses, spiritual losses, losses of land, life, and most horribly, hope.
To be without hope is to be unable to imagine tomorrow. It’s not the same as grief, exactly, because when we’re grieving we can all too well imagine the next day, and the next, filled with our sorrow and loss. And grief itself is a sign of life—to know what your loss is, to recognize that grieving is a result of having loved someone or something. There is the tiniest comfort in grief itself, because of its proximity to love. To be without hope is to not even have our grief as a comfort, to not have the ability to picture a good or bad next day, to have only the sentence of the unchangeable truth of our situation.
God gives Ezekiel a stunning vision of hope. God takes Ezekiel, by the Spirit, and plops him down in a valley. There, God shows the prophet the Ancient-Near-Eastern version of Gettysburg—a place where a terrible battle has taken place, whose soil has been soaked in blood, and where the dead have remained where they’ve fallen, until there was nothing left by their bare, dry bones. And God takes Ezekiel by the hand, and walks him around that valley, in and among and around the bones. After this unsettling excursion, God asks the prophet: “Mortal, can these bones live?” “I have no idea,” the prophet replies. “Only you know, Lord God, only you can say.”
Can these bones live? God is asking Ezekiel, Is there hope?
I think those of us who have lived through this past year can understand what might lead someone to ask that question. There is so much we have lost. We have lost friends and loved ones; we have lost time together and familiar places that gave us comfort and joy. We have lost jobs, and opportunities, and concerts, and parties, and the ability to be with friends, and to hold grandchildren in our arms. Our sanctuary was not mowed to the ground, but for a long time, we weren’t able to worship here until vaccination rates went up and infection rates came down. We face a summer that may well be like most summers we’ve known before Covid-time. Maybe.
And yet, a sense of fatigue persists, and a sense of disappointment, and maybe even anger at what we’ve lost. I heard of a young woman who posted to social media: “I’m so angry that the pandemic has forced me to move back my wedding. I haven’t met the man I’ll marry yet, but still….” And, she’s not wrong. For many people of all ages, life was put on hold.
As a result, we are scattered. We are fragmented. We feel that our lives do not cohere any more, they are not a whole. There’s before, and maybe, almost, after? Now, I have heard strange tales about some people who found greater balance during the pandemic, who realized they no longer wanted to be a part of that rat race that had suddenly been canceled. If you are one of those folks, bless you. I am grateful for your experience. For many of us, that was not the case—life became more complex, not less. And that’s from the relatively privileged position of being a full-time pastor. So many people had to struggle so heroically. So many had to face grave danger while they were doing it. So much was lost.
Can these bones live? Is there hope?
God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, to give them this message from God:
Hear this, bones:
I am going to breathe life into you,
just as I breathed it into a handful of dirt in the garden of Eden.
I am going to restore you, layer by layer—bone to sinew, sinew to flesh, flesh to skin.
I will breathe my very own Spirit into you, and you will live.
Ezekiel does as God commands, first prophesying to the bones; and then watching as it happens. He hears the clattering of bone attaching to bone, and watches as the as the bodies re-compose. But they are still just corpses.
God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to breath, and again, the prophet obeys, summoning the winds, the breath, the Spirit of God from the four corners of the earth, until the breath fills the lungs of the bodies. And there it is: LIFE. Before the prophet, stands a vast multitude. An army, in fact, though our translation obscures that. And God speaks again.
The first thing God does is to tell Ezekiel:
I hear them. I hear my people. I hear their despair.
And then—finally—Ezekiel is commissioned to speak to the people:
They feel like they’re dead? Tell them: I will dig them up, pull them from their graves.
They feel like people without a country? Tell them: I will bring them home.
They feel like their spirits are gone? Tell them: I will breathe new life into them.
They will live, they will be home, and the Spirit will move through them once again.
God, it seems, is ever in the resurrection business. That’s what this is. It’s a resurrection. And one path of resurrection is taking what was fragmented, what had fallen apart (or was torn apart) and gathering it together again. Like the bones of those ancient warriors, God gathers together all the parts of us that have scattered, and brings us back to wholeness. The Spirit of God breathes into us—Peace. Life. Hope.
And the path home. Whether you find a kind of home is this sanctuary, or whether you find it in the hills, breathing in the scents of pine or cedar; whether you find home in your own little corner, in your own little chair; or whether you find home in the eyes or arms of another, hear, O hear, people of God, for the Lord has spoken:
I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will bring you home.
Thanks be to God. Amen.