Breathing Life into Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37: 1-14
Romans 8: 22-27

Ezekiel was a prophet who had many visions given to him by the Lord. The vision we read about today is one of the more famous visions he had. There is something so eloquent and poignant about seeing a valley full of dried bones. The image speaks of death, vast devastation of a people, and it is heartbreaking.

But the vision does not end there. Suddenly, Ezekiel hears God’s voice speaking to him, asking him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” After I hear this question, my instinct is to answer it with a yes or a no. However, Ezekiel is a much wiser person and responds, “Sovereign Lord, only you alone know.”

This is humanity’s fatal flaw. We think we have the answers to life’s questions. We think we know what is coming next and so we prepare ourselves and we do things in a certain way, because we are positive in what we know. Look at how we live our lives. If we eat healthy and exercise, we are told we will live longer. If we buy the latest cars with the newest safety technology, even if we crash, we will be okay. If we get hurt in the crash, we have health insurance so that the doctor can make us better. But if the doctor doesn’t make us better we have disability insurance so that we won’t have to worry about starving on the street. If we do die, we have life insurance to help support our family when we’re gone.

For every eventuality, for every possible outcome of life, humanity has tried to find an answer. We have tried to fix the world so that it is a safer, kinder place where there is less stress and worry. That is what all these insurances and safety features and alarm systems and internet websites are all about. Information and help at the click of a button or the exchange of money. It is our attempt to answer the questions that God poses to us. “Son of man, can these dry bones live?” But Ezekiel is not like that. Ezekiel acknowledges that even though he is looking at a valley of death that he cannot stop or fix, that if God wills these bones to live, then they will live.

What God has Ezekiel do next is nothing short of silliness. God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to these dead, dry bones. There is no point to prophesy to something dead – it is long gone from this world. There are no ears to hear, there are no eyes to see, there is no brain to understand the prophesying. It is completely ridiculous for Ezekiel to go out there and begin to preach the Word of God to these dry bones.  It is a waste of time, resources, and effort.

Wait. I’ve heard these words before. I’ve said them and had them said to me. When a church wants to shoot down an idea these are the first words out of our mouths. “There is no point” “It’s a waste of time” “They won’t listen anyway” “People will hate us and ignore us or worse.” “We can’t help them without using up a lot of valuable resources.”

Since when has God ever asked a person to do something that made sense or didn’t seem like a waste of time, money, and resources? God never makes sense. God is always asking people in the bible to do crazy things and it is only when they DON’T listen that things go wrong. It is people like Jonah who thinks he knows the right answer, who thinks the people of Nineveh deserve to go to hell and so he runs from his duty and ends up in the belly of a whale. It’s people like Abraham who tells the Pharaoh that Sarah is his sister and not his wife because he’s afraid to be killed and then ends up bringing a plague on the Pharaoh’s house when God becomes angry.

Every time we ignore God’s commands, we make matters worse. This is a nice building we have here, but it is only a building. What we do inside of it, what we do outside of it is what makes it a church. We carry the Spirit of God with us and when we all walk into this church - that is when it becomes a holy place. We forget that. We forget too much about what Jesus has taught us in our effort to keep up a building when what we need to be keeping up is the world around us.

Ezekiel does not question God’s command. He begins to prophesy to those dry, dead bones. Then he watches in amazement as they begin to take on life and form. The bones connect with other bones and then muscles and sinew appear, and then flesh to cover them. But still, Ezekiel notices that there is no breath in these bones that now have flesh upon them. There is still something missing.

Most churches today are like these flesh covered bones. They have some sort of life and substance to them, but there is something missing. Why are so many churches failing? Why, when I look around at this church do I see an obvious generation gap? For as many answers as we have come up with to solve life’s problems, there is still misery in this world. There is still heartache and pain and loss. In previous generations the place to go to be relieved of that burden, even for a little while, was church. Why has that changed? Why have we allowed that to change?

Our church is luckier than a lot of other churches. I use the word luck on purpose. Our most faithful members are getting older, our most dedicated committee members are getting older and are ready to put down the reigns. In the last fifty years we have been lucky enough to have someone to step up and take those reigns when it was needed. But as I look around this church, I wonder how long that can last without new people. How long can a church go on without new blood, new life to make this building into a sacred place?

Ezekiel noticed something was missing from those flesh covered bones. He looks to the Lord and the Lord tells him to prophesy again, this time to the wind that will breathe on these bones and bring them back to full life. And so he does and sure enough, there stood a vast army of people, no longer dry and dusty bones.

Often in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God is referred to as wind, breath, or wisdom. What was missing from those bones was the Spirit of God, the very breath that God breathed into Adam when he created him at the beginning. And so God tells Ezekiel to prophesy and God would bring life and spirit back into those dry bones.

Then God explains exactly what this vision is all about to Ezekiel. These dry bones are the people of Israel who have long been dead because they are without God’s Spirit, but God is about to change all of that. He is about to bring them back to life, to save them and give them what they have been missing.

I think what is missing from the churches of today is God’s Spirit. We talk about the Holy Spirit, we mention her briefly here and there but we do not take much notice of what the Spirit is doing. We do not look around at the church and wonder where new possibilities could be created. We do not look at the people around us in church and ask, “How has their week gone?” We do not open our eyes to the problems that exist outside of these walls, problems we could help alleviate. Instead, we have made church all about us.

Jesus never intended Christianity to revolve around individuals or a building. This is a manmade invention. God has been generous enough to bless many of the things we attempt to do, but obviously the church is failing. The worldwide church has faltered in Western cities and towns. People do not care about going to worship. They do not care about God on Sunday or any other day of the week. People do not know what Jesus has done for them.

Whose fault is that? We tend to place all the blame for big things on God, but it is not that simple and never has been. It is time we step up to the plate; it is time to take responsibility for our actions, or rather our non-action. We have let society down as we became too involved in finding answers instead of asking questions. We need to be more like Ezekiel who looks to God and says, “Lord God, only you know.” And then when God gives him a task – Ezekiel does it. He does it without searching for another answer. He does it without wondering about time, money, and resources. He listens, he hears, he obeys.

This is something the church has long failed at. It is time to change.

Amen.