Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2008 : March 9, 2008

Theme: Can These Bones Live?

Church year occasion: Lent 5

Today I want you to think of the school you go to now or went to when you were younger. They always had a mascot of some kind that should say something to the team you're playing against. For instance, what's the mascot of Trinity Lutheran School in Waukesha? The Trojans. They were mighty warriors ages ago known for their valor. Mt. Calvary Lutheran School? The Cardinals -- their color makes them distinctive, and tells other birds that you don't want to mess with them. I went to Wisconsin Lutheran High School. They are the Vikings -- again, northern warriors who wore horns on their heads. You don't want to mess with someone who wears horns on their heads, do you? Does anyone know what the mascot of Luther Prep School in Watertown is? The Phoenix. What's a Phoenix? It's a mythical firebird that lives for 500 years or so and dies in its own fire so that it burns itself to ashes. But a new Phoenix rises from the ashes. The Phoenix was used in Egypt to represent the sun dying every day and rising again every morning. It also represented the Nile River that always floods in the spring so Egypt could plant crops and survive in the desert. We can identify with that -- every spring, even though it looks like everything has died, new life bursts forth from under the ground as flowers and green grass, buds and blooms on trees and bushes. Even the Christian church has adopted the idea of the Phoenix and used it in church art to represent something -- the resurrection. The Phoenix tells us that from something dead, new life will awaken. In our text the prophet Ezekiel saw a vision of a dramatic transformation from death to life as well. Think of what God's trying to tell you with this vision.

God took Ezekiel to a valley full of bones and asked him an important question: "Can these bones live?" What exactly was God telling Ezekiel and us by this vision and that question? Let's find out.

First, let's put ourselves in Ezekiel's place and see what he saw. "The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones." Now that I've got you thinking about spring, what would we usually expect to find in a valley in Wisconsin once spring or summer comes -- maybe some corn or grain, maybe a gently flowing stream in a wooded area, perhaps some cows wandering around? That may have been what Ezekiel expected to see, too, perhaps with a few more rocks around instead of the cows. It brings to mind a movie I once saw where men were walking through a beautiful field and the birds were singing, the bees and other insects were buzzing around, the flowers were in full bloom. But then the man came across a dead body. The body had a soldier's uniform on. He was German. Next to him was an American -- also dead. Suddenly the quiet and serene country scene was replaced by death. It felt so wrong in that beautiful field that it was unnatural, disturbing, even revolting. That's what God showed Ezekiel -- a valley full of bones. A valley full of death.

But God wasn't content to just give him a little taste of death and then take him away quickly so he wouldn't get upset or sick to his stomach. No, Ezekiel says that God "led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry." What two things did Ezekiel notice about these bones? First, there were many of them -- the whole valley was littered with bones. And second, they were very, very dry. In other words, these bones had been in this valley a long time. There was absolutely no life in these bones; there was absolutely no chance of these bones coming alive by themselves. And God's question directs Ezekiel and us to consider just how dead these bones are: " 'Son of man, can these bones live?' "

What was the point of the vision and the question? God tells us exactly what this vision means in verse 11, so we can't misunderstand him. "Then he said to me: 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, "Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off." ' " Why was the house of Israel saying this? The importance comes from where they were at this time. Ezekiel was a prophet called by God to minister to the Southern tribes of Judah. But he wasn't in the land of Judah -- that's where Jeremiah was at this time. No, Ezekiel was a captive of the Babylonians. All the prophecies God had made concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple because of Judah's godlessness had taken place. Ezekiel was called to be a prophet to the exiles in Babylon as they remembered what their life was like before in their homeland. But now they saw their homeland devastated by war.

Imagine if that happened to you. Imagine terrorists invading Waukesha and killing anyone they choose. Imagine seeing the local Pick-N-Save blown to pieces while people were still inside. Imagine the pictures you see of Iraq and Afghanistan happening here -- roadside bombs, suicide bombers, people being kidnapped and tortured. Imagine seeing your own family members put to death in front of you to deter you from getting any ideas of being a hero. Imagine we had just built our new church, and that was bombed, too -- completely destroyed. Now can you see why the people at Ezekiel's time had no hope, that they didn't even want to live? Because of their sins, God had abandoned his people. Remember the two things that Ezekiel noticed about the bones -- that there were many of them and that they were dry -- that describes the many exiles in Babylon who thought that they were now as good as dead: their bones were dried up and their hope gone; they were cut off. Could these people ever live again after looking at the despair they were feeling at that time? It must have seemed like God himself had forsaken them.

How did Ezekiel answer God's question of "Can these bones live?" He said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know." God's point, which Ezekiel picked up on right away was this: By themselves, they had no hope for life. We are the New Testament Israel, the spiritual Israel, the people of God. Have there been times when you just haven't been able to shake off some kind of depression? Maybe life has turned meaningless after you lose a loved one in death or divorce. Maybe you just said goodbye to your last child as you send them off to high school or college. Maybe you don't even know why you feel so despondent and life seems so meaningless and full of nothing but dread. First, you have to see that you and I have absolutely no power to change our lives for the better. Anything we do will be just a band-aid put on a bleeding and dying heart. Some people, maybe even our friends, might go through their whole lives that way, and finally they eventually die without knowing what comes afterwards, not realizing the whole time that while they were living in this world, they were actually dead as doornails or dry bones.

But that isn't the end for God's people -- not in Ezekiel's time; not now.

He saw what God could do and what God did with those dry, dead bones. "Then he said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, "Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD." ' " The first thing God said is very important: "Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!" The only way that life would enter those dead bones was if God himself intervened. And the way he intervened was by his powerful Word. If the people of Judah were going to live again, they needed to listen to the Word of the Lord. God's Word was a word and promise of hope and life to them. As Ezekiel prophesied as he was told, the bones came together and tendons and flesh appeared on them. But still they were dead, like a battle ground full of dead corpses. But then God breathed into them the breath of life through his Spirit and they came alive -- a vast army.

Why could those dead bones come alive? Because God gave them hope; he gave them life -- not physical life here, but spiritual and eternal life. He gave them the promise of a Savior from sin. A Savior who would make the fulfillment in Matthew 11:5 possible: "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." The people of Judah knew these prophecies about the coming Messiah, but they were letting the circumstances in their lives blot out the Son of Righteousness and what he would one day come and do for them. They had no hope and were despairing because their life was not connected to the powerful and life-giving Word of God.

The same is true for us, isn't it? Boy, we have a lot of troubles in this life that keep us up at night! Where are we going to get enough money to pay the bills? What's happening to our teenagers? It seems like they have turned on us. Or maybe the teenager thinks, "My parents don't love me." The wisest man in the world, King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes: "Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!" He was writing from the viewpoint of a life not connected to the Spirit through the Word. Of course life is meaningless without God. Even if you stored up for yourself a pile of money and treasure on earth or had the greatest reputation around and everyone loved you or everything seemed to work out just how you wanted it to, everything would turn out to be meaningless in the end if you had no relationship with God. And that's what God's points out to Ezekiel and God's Old Testament people and you and me. Live without God and your life will be meaningless. But when you hear what Christ has done for you -- that God sent him to this earth on a mission of saving you from sin, that Jesus lived and died in your place so that you are now righteous and holy in God's sight and an heir of heaven, and that the Holy Spirit brings sinners like you and me to faith in Jesus through which we are saved -- then how can life be meaningless? It can't be, because God breathes life and hope and meaning and salvation into you through his Word.

We see things in a whole new perspective. And we can go on. "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." God promised to give life to his people and bring them back from captivity to their own land, and he kept that promise. God has made you alive as well. He has settled you in this land that has experienced peace on our shores for 150 years. Most importantly, though, he has given you peace through his Son. He has settled you in your own land, your heavenly home. One day he'll bring you there. Until then, remember where your strength comes from -- the Lord and his Word. Can these bones live? Yes! Amen.