5th Sunday in Lent
Ezekiel 37:1-10
The hand of God came upon me, and I was brought out by the spirit of God, and set down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. I was led all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. God said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O God, you know.” Then God said, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of God. Thus says God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am God.” So, I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then God said, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as commanded, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Breath of Life
I want you all to think back to what life was like three years ago. The pandemic had just started and we were getting all kinds of mixed messages about it, about how dangerous it was and how many people were affected by it. How it spread and how long the pandemic was going to last. I remember, about a month before everything was shut down, my friend, the Rev. Faith McClellan, who a lot of you have met, had come to San Francisco to attend the funeral of the man who had been the director of her Clinical Pastoral Education program. I drove into the city to have dinner with her, and as we were coming down the elevator from her hotel room, this man was riding down the elevator with us, and he was wearing a face mask. This was before everyone had started doing that.
He started talking about how dangerous the coming virus was, and how nobody was ready for it. He had been hearing things, news out of Asia, and he didn’t think people were taking it as seriously as they should have. As we went off in our separate directions, we dismissed what he said, agreeing that the virus was probably not going to be much worse than the flu, and that the whole thing would blow over in a few months. But, we should have known better, because Faith had already been told that she would not be able to attend the funeral, which was being held at the hospital, because there were concerns about people spreading the virus.
When the lockdown finally did happen, I was working as a part-time caregiver. There was another caregiver, Dhalma, and we both lived with our client, a seventy-year-old woman who was recovering from a stroke she had three years prior. The first few weeks of the lockdown were kind of like an adventure. We created these elaborate meals to help pass the time. Fried chicken with all of the fixings, grilled salmon with roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and pie. One night we even decided to do a full Thanksgiving Day spread, with half of a wild turkey that Dhalma’s uncle had hunted for and given to her. Just to be clear, we did that in April, not November.
We couldn’t do anything or go anywhere, including restaurants, so we tried to make the best of our situation. But, as you know, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, and like most people, we started to go a little stir crazy. We were all wondering if it was ever going to end. Things were so stark, people were dying, millions of people, all over the world. So many people lost loved ones to the pandemic, and the virus kept mutating. A lot of people were beginning to lose hope.
I chose this illustration for the sermon today so that we might have a little bit of understanding for what the Israelite people were feeling at the time of this prophesy. The Israelites were an exiled people, living far away from the land of their ancestors. They thought they were cut off from their God, who they believed was in Judah. They had no idea when or even if they would ever be able to go back home. So often, when we look at this story, we immediately think about its connection to the resurrection of Jesus, which is precisely why were find it here in the lectionary on the fifth Sunday of Lent. But, we have to remember, that at the time that this prophecy was written, this valley of dry bones did not represent Jesus, they represented the entirety of the Israelite people. The bones represented their exile. The bones represented their sadness. The bones represented their separation and their hopelessness. They were unmoored, lost, abandoned. They were spiritually dead.
God brought Ezekiel to this valley of dry bones, and told him to prophesy over them. Ezekiel spoke to the bones, and the bones rattled. The bones drew together, held in place with sinew, muscle, and skin, but the bodies did not breathe. And, God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, to speak to the breath, that God was commanding the breath to come from the four winds so that the slain might live. “And the breath came to them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”
It’s important to note here that God did not act absent Ezekiel’s words. Instead, God told Ezekiel to prophesy over the bones, to tell the bones that God was going to resurrect them. God told Ezekiel to prophesy over the bones, to tell the bones that God would lay sinews on them, would cause flesh to come upon them, that God would cover them with skin, and put breath into them, and that they would live. It’s not so different from today. Just as God has always done, God works through us, through our hands and feet, for we are the body of Christ, God’s hands and feet in the world. Just as Ezekiel is called to prophesy over the bones, we are called to spread God’s love to the world.
And, while the bones represent the Israelite people, if we take the long view, knowing that the resurrection of Christ is coming, knowing that God has a plan, that God is the same now, always, and forever, then we can look at this story of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones as a foreshadowing of what is to come. Resurrection would not have been some strange foreign concept to the Jews of the first century; they would have been familiar with the story of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones. And, in the days leading up to the crucifixion, there would have been reports of Jesus raising people from the dead: the widow’s son, Jarius’ daughter, and Jesus’ own friend Lazarus. Death is no hardship for God. God’s breath brings what was dead back to life, and brings life to places where there was no life before. God’s breath brings hope to the hopeless.
We survived the pandemic, as a nation, as a world. It was hard. It was devastating. We lost a lot of people. Things seemed so hopeless as we became our own valley of dry bones. But, we survived. God was with us, and we survived. God was in the medical professionals who cared for the sick. God was in the kindness that we showed to each other so that we could just get through one more day. God was in the researchers, who worked so hard to find a vaccine. And, God was with the people, the vast majority of whom wore their masks, and stayed home, and practiced social distancing when they had to be around other people, and we survived.
No matter how difficult or unbearable things become, we know that in the end, God will prevail, and that the breath of God will course through all of creation, setting things right, and bringing light and life to the desperate and the hopeless. Our God is a God of resurrection and renewal. And, we are a part of that renewal. God works in partnership with us and works through us. God’s breath is us, and when we breathe out God’s love to the people of the world, we become God’s breath, we become the gift of light and love that God offers to those who need it the most. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
