Preaching to Dry Bones

(Scriptures: Ezekiel 37:1-14 Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:18-27 John 15:26-27; John 16:1-15)

It was not a pretty sight. Ezekiel was led by the Spirit of the Lord, we’re told, to a valley full of dry bones. Perhaps this valley had been the site of some long-ago battle, and these bones represented some sort of mass grave. We’re told not only that there were lots and lots of bones, but that they were very, very dry. These bones were the last remains of people who had been dead for a long time; the flesh had long been picked by the vultures, and whatever flesh the vultures had missed had long ago rotten away. Even the marrow in the center of the bones had dried up. These bones were dead, dead, dead.




And the Lord asks Ezekiel what seems to be a very silly question: “Can these bones live?” If I were in Ezekiel’s place and heard the Lord’s question, it wouldn’t take me long to answer: “Are you nuts? Don’t you see how dead and dry and bare of flesh these bones are? Heck no, these bones can’t live.”



Fortunately, the Lord asked the question, not to me, but to Ezekiel. And Ezekiel came up with exactly the right answer: “O Lord, you know.” Ezekiel wasn’t going to go so far as to say they definitely would live, but he wouldn’t rule out the possibility – at least, not when the Lord of life and death is in the house.



Having asked Ezekiel what seems to be a silly question, he then asks Ezekiel to do what seems like a very silly thing: “Prophesy to the bones, and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I’d like you to picture yourself in that valley, talking to the bones, preaching to them, telling them that God still had plans for them, still saw the possibility of life where all there was to be seen in any direction was death. I know how silly I’d feel if I stepped out into our cemetery and started preaching to the headstones. But, again, fortunately it was Ezekiel, and not I, in the valley of dry bones.



Having preached as instructed, Ezekiel now had bodies in front of him – but with no breath in them, no spirit. So God tells Ezekiel to preach to the breath or spirit to go back into these bodies. And they come to life, a vast army. Ezekiel is told that the bones represent the people of Israel, who have lost all hope, and whom God proposes to call up out of their grave of despair, figuratively speaking.



The story of Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones seems like one of those impossible Bible stories that is so disconnected from our experience that it has nothing to do with our lives. And yet, this morning I’m here to say that God calls us in the church, calls us, who are Christ’s hands and feet in the world, to preach life into dead bones – all the time. We who claim as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was killed by men and raised by God, we who follow in the way of Jesus who raised Lazarus from the dead, worship a God who still brings hope to the hopeless, the joy of the Lord to those who despair, the peace of God that passes all understanding to those who are paralyzed with fear – in a word, who speaks the life of Christ into persons and situations that are seemingly as far beyond hope as that valley of dry bones. Every one of us carries burdens of anxiety over our own health and circumstances, and worries about those we love. But, as Christians, we worship a God who is greater than our problems. As I’ve heard it said, “don’t tell God how great your problems are; instead, tell your problems how great God is.” If you’re tempted to think of yourself and your life and your circumstances as hopeless – like a pile of dead, dry bones – Ezekiel’s got a sermon to preach to you. As we say in the United Church of Christ, never place a period where God has placed a comma. As Christians, neither life nor death nor height nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God. We worship a God who is still very much in the healing business, a God who still saves, a God who is powerful to still the wind and waves of trouble that buffet our lives. Even a valley of dead bones is not beyond God’s reach. God will put his renewing spirit within us, and we will know that the Lord has spoken and will act. Even if we feel so dried up and desolate of hope that we cannot find the words to pray, Paul assures us that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding with sighs to deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”



And, with God’s spirit within us, it’s our call to preach to those around us who have given up hope, whose hopes have dried up like piles of dead bones. It’s my call as pastor of Emanuel Church, and it’s your call as members of Emanuel Church, when God leads us to a valley of dry bones, to speak and act in ways that are life-giving. It’s not easy to speak life in places and situations where others see only death, not easy to speak and act in ways that are life-giving when even many churches all too often speak and act in ways that are death-dealing – but that is our call. (As Paul once wrote, the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.)



Our reading from the 2nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles shows us what it looks like when the Spirit of God moves in the lives of God’s people, and God’s people are inspired to speak and act in new ways. Remember, Luke tells us that after Jesus’ ascension, the disciples were instructed to stay in Jerusalem and await the coming of the Spirit. And while they were waiting, not a lot happened. They did some organizational housekeeping, electing Matthias to fill the vacancy in the apostles left by Judas – though we basically never hear of Matthias again. But when the Spirit came with power on Pentecost, and all those on whom the spirit fell spoke in tongues and testified about God’s deeds of power – when some were frightened and others scoffed, it was Peter who received the power of the Spirit to preach the words of life, to speak God’s truth and love to those who were gathered. Indeed, God’s spirit not only empowers us, but instructs us, for as Jesus told his disciples, ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning…..I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mind and declare it to you.” It is an awesome thing to consider that the Spirit that in the Old Testament was poured out on special men and women of God, like Ezekiel, has now been poured out on us in the church.



I was at a clergy meeting earlier this week, and we did an extended study on these words from God to Ezekiel: “A new heart I give you, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” And some of the clergy discussed – as we here have often discussed during the Bible study – why the churches struggle so, why so many, inside and outside of the church, seemingly have hearts of stone. You see, clergy get discouraged too. One of the pastors said, “What if we are living in a time like that of Isaiah…what if God has decreed that no matter what we do, the people will “keep listening but not comprehend, keep looking but not understand, that the peoples’ minds will be dull, their ears stopped, their eyes shut, so that may not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds and turn and be healed.” It’s a daunting prospect – God’s people through the ages after Isaiah departed this earth have drawn great inspiration from Isaiah’s writings, but consider how discouraging it must have been for Isaiah to be commissioned in a vision from God to preach, yet knowing from the outset that no matter how faithful he was, hardly anyone around him would respond. And yet, just as God called Isaiah to be faithful in his time, in the same way God calls us to be faithful in ours. So we must preach the word, in season and out of season. We must preach the word – even if all that’s in front of us to listen is a pile of dry bones.


“Can these bones live?” the Lord asked Ezekiel, and the Lord asks us. No matter how desolate, may we honor God by responding, “Oh Lord, you know”, and giving God’s spirit space and place to act. Whether the Spirit comes as the rush of a mighty wind and tongues of fire, or whether the Spirit speaks to us in a still small voice, may we hear, and when we hear, where the Spirit leads, may we at Emanuel Church follow. Amen.