Dry Bones & Dead Spirits

Ezekiel 37: 1-14
Romans 8: 6-11


Peter and St. Paul are at the Pearly Gates and Paul is looking through The Book of Names, and he says to Peter, "There are more people in heaven than there is supposed to be! Go find out what has happened!"

Peter runs off, and some time later he returns to Paul.

Paul says, "Did you find out why there are too many people here?"

Peter says, "It's Jesus. He's helping people in over the back fence."

We are God’s people. We have been given the gift of salvation because we have heard the Word of God proclaimed to us and we have responded. We have been called to preach and teach the Gospel to the entire world. We do this by being living embodiments of what Christ has promised – we are supposed to live lives of faith and joy because we are sure of God and assured we will have life after death.

In these passages of Ezekiel and Romans, we are told about sinful people who do not know God, and have no hope because of it. Paul was preaching that we can live one of two ways, we can live as part of the world and allow it to corrupt us and consequently deaden our souls, or we can live a life in the Spirit and the result will be peace and eternal life.

This is important for us to think about because Ezekiel also came up against two choices for His people. The Israelites were becoming a deadened and spiritless group who had taken on the ways of the surrounding cultures and were lacking God’s guidance. But as soon as Ezekiel began to preach to the dry bones and deadened spirits, life was renewed in them. In other words, as long as the Holy Spirit is active and working within us, nothing can hold us back from God.

In the area I grew up, we had a lot of flooding and so a dam was to be built where a town resided. The town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole village was to be wiped out? So, week by week, the whole town became more and more bedraggled, more gone to seed, more woebegone. "Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present."

This world is cynical and without hope. Too often we can let ourselves be dragged down into the same cynicism and hopelessness such as that town that no longer had a future. We, as Christians, are called to be in the world but not of the world. When we feel like outsiders and like nothing will ever go our way, we need to remember the future belongs to Jesus Christ who has promised to be with us.

We need to learn to thirst and hunger for Jesus Christ. We need to want God deep inside of us. When we empty ourselves of the world’s influences, we are able to be renewed through the power of the Holy Spirit when we read scripture, when we pray, and when we worship together on Sundays.

Why is Christianity growing in the poor countries, in the places where people are persecuted and hungry and sick, but in more advanced societies religion and especially Christianity seems to be dying out? The poorer areas of the world are full of people that are empty, and someone saw that and began to preach the Good News to them. Then the sick, the blind, and the hungry were filled with hope from the Holy Spirit; they are learning what it means to go from being dead spirits to living flesh. This is exactly what Ezekiel is talking about when he says the Israelites are like dry dusty bones because they lack hope. Their pain and despair came because they were Babylonian slaves and thought they would never get to see Jerusalem again.

What is our excuse? Why are we such faithless people who allow the world to govern what we do and say? Paul tells us that those who live in the realm of flesh cannot please God and he says Christians, yes all of you sitting in the pews today, have no excuse. Paul tells us the Spirit of God lives in us and there is no reason to act differently, there is no reason to act as if we are without a future and without a God who cares deeply about us.

The other day I read something truly alarming. Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has written that the fall of the Roman Empire was caused by five major social events:

1. The rapid increase of divorce; the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.
2. Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies for free bread and circuses for the populace.
3. The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.
4. The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy was within, the decadence of the people.
5. The decay of religion -- faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life and becoming helpless to warn and guide the people.

This should sound familiar because as I read these words, I saw our society. And this is happening in not just America, but much of the industrialized world. I pity third world countries because as they take on a more global outlook and they enjoy more so-called luxuries, they too will see a decrease in faith and religious practices and see the people become emotionally and spiritually empty.

We enjoy our comforts too much and forget to depend on God. Atheists think this is proof that there is no God, but what I think it proves is that people would rather live doing what they want, when they want than obey God’s commands. We think we are being chained when we follow God’s rules, but if we would just listen we would find that God’s rules free us. It sounds like an oxymoron, but God has told us through Ezekiel and Paul that when we do not listen we become lifeless. We are weak and begin to lose hope because we are mere human beings with little power. However, God has the power to make dust turn into living flesh and blood. God has the power to transform our lives.

So if you were Ezekiel and saw all those dry, dusty bones and those dead spirits lying in the desert and God asked you, “Can these bones live?”, I want to know what your response would be. Do you believe in the healing and saving power of Jesus Christ? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit is with us now and that God loves you? And if you do, then why aren’t you acting like it? Why do you still treat life as if you have no joy and that you are not assured of salvation? Where is your peace of mind? You can say you’re a Christian and you can say you believe, but if your faith is like a dead spirit, it will deaden your hope and joy.

Do not be dry and dusty in your faith, but take on the flesh of God and live a joyful and fulfilling life in Christ.
Amen.