Sunday, November 2, 2014
Ezekiel, standing in a valley of
bones; is there a more bizarre story in the Bible? The story leads with this: “the hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the
midst of the valley.” In the Spirit of the Lord; we know we
are hearing a vision, but still. What a
vision!
To what can
we compare such a passage?
Consider a
bizarre bit from the gospel of Matthew. It
comes right at the moment Jesus dies on the cross after an agonizing day of
trials, floggings, taunts, and then the pain and shame of hanging, nailed to a
cross. He breathes his last breath; then
Matthew writes
50 And Jesus cried out
again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
51 Then, behold, the
veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked,
and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were
opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the
graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to
many.
If this actually had happened, why
didn’t Mark, Luke, or John mention it?
Or Paul? I don’t think this was
an event in history. Matthew, I believe,
tapped into the same spirit of symbolism and prophetic anticipation that
Ezekiel used. He may have had Ezekiel’s
“dry bones passage” in mind when he wrote these words. We know from Ezekiel 37:1 that the prophet is
in a vision. He says as much in verse
11. “Son of man, these bones are the
house of Israel.”
Israel will not vanish into the mists of history. The God who chose Israel to be His chosen,
special people through whom he would show himself to all humanity, the God who
parted the Red Sea and enabled David to defeat Goliath – that God was still
God. That God would honor his promises
to Israel, even in exile. Even under
Babylonian rule, they would be God’s people and live in blessing and
relationship. Ezekiel’s story of bones
come to life is told to show Israel all is not lost and never will be.
Centuries later, Matthew taps into that unrelenting, unfailing
hope in God of Israel when he writes, “The graves were opened.” The minute Jesus, the Son of God, died death
was defeated. Matthew wrote as if those
things happened in that moment. Thus he
struck with a prophetic effect similar to Ezekiel. The specter of death that hangs over all
humans was lifted for all in Christ.
When Matthew says the graves opened and the inhabitants left death
behind and went into the city and testified, he meant the witness that would be
given by the apostles.
Peter and John, James and Paul and the rest no longer lived with
the notion that death was something to fear.
In Christ, it just is not an issue for us. Yes, these bodies die. Yes, in many cases, disease or sickness or
tragedy precedes the death of the body and it can be painful and
heartbreaking. The apostles though,
especially right after meeting the risen Lord, saw past all that death
entails. They saw into eternity.
These bodies that die will rise again at the resurrection. On that day, what Matthew spoke of as
symbolism and saw as a future reality will actually take place. Graves will open, bodies will reconstitute in
eternal form so that the resurrected body can no longer feel pain, be injured
or die. People, who were cremated,
buried, or whatever else will be brought back together and raised to
everlasting life. In resurrected bodies,
all who are in Christ live as sons and daughters of God in eternal joy. Until then, we live this life in
relationships of love with God and with each other. Even though we know we will likely experience
the death of our bodies and we will go through the pains and ailments all
people have, we live as people who will live forever. Just as Ezekiel foresaw Israel’s revival as
the people of God, Matthew anticipated the end of death for all who follow
Christ.
I wonder how this reality lives in the mind of Daniel Ayuba. He lives in the area of Nigeria that has been
terrorized by Boko Haram, a Muslim group intent on imposing the strictest of
enforcement of sharia law.[i] Boko Haram has turned Northern Nigeria into a
war zone with their deadly assaults on civilian populations including the
abduction of over 200 girls earlier this year.
I think of them and wonder if I lived there, would I have any hope.
The Israelites in exile in Babylon were fixed in despair. Was their identity as people of God gone forever?
Had their God been defeated?
Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones becoming resurrected was God’s message
that he had not gone anywhere, that his vision for his people was life, and
that life was absolutely their future.
These bones are the whole house of Israel.
‘Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up … and
bring you into the land of Israel. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord … . 14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you
shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
To Israel’s despair, God promised life.
That life came in an unexpected, new way in Jesus – God fulfilling
God’s promise to Israel in the person of God’s messiah. Jesus’ death and resurrection was the
ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise.
If Matthew wrote in the late first century as most scholars think, then
he was writing to specific church or group of churches and the reason he formed
his gospel as he did was to aid the church in their development as a missional
community whose purpose was to share Jesus with the world. It was a small church
that was out of favor with larger entities all around it – Roman paganism,
Greek culture, and the synagogue. Surely
the church to which Matthew was writing underwent times of despair.
The resurrection had happened, but this was more than 30 years
later. Paul was probably dead. The first generation of Jesus – followers
were old. Would the entire movement fade
and die a slow, forgettable death? I
wonder if Matthew, using prophetic anticipation, inspired by the breath, the
Spirit of God, gave a resounding “No” to the despair that threatened the
nascent church.
We aren’t going to make it. Matthew’s response? Jesus
… yielded up His spirit. And the graves
were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection,
they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew was telling his church, “You are
these who were in the grave. You know
Jesus was raised and because he was, you come into the city and testify to the
life we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
A despairing exiled community; a demoralized church; God speaks
hope where it seems all hope is gone. I mentioned Daniel Ayuba and
Nigerians under the threat of violence and death at the hands of Boko
Haram. Two
years ago, attackers planted a bomb near a car wash in the city of Maiduguri. He
was near the explosion. He had 80% of
his body covered in shrapnel, one of his legs shattered. He said, "I looked around me and there
was fire burning, houses blown up and dead people. I kept on crying, crying for
someone to come help me, but no one would come.” His body to this day is covered with
scars. He’ll carry this pain and
terror.
If I lived in Nigeria, how could I hope? I live in the comfort of middle class America
and I feel powerless and despondent when I read the stories or think about the
violence in Syria. This event was not
the first time he experience heartache due to Boko Haram violence. At one point he asks as I am sure most
Nigerians ask, “What is wrong with these people?” When life conspires to break us whether by
exile or persecution or terrorism or in our own very real disappointments and
losses, it seems natural to ask, what is
wrong with this? I find myself in my
personal frustrations pounding the table asking, what it wrong here? And yet,
Mr. Ayuba had this to say, his final quote in the CNN article. "It was God that saved me. He kept me alive on
purpose, and I ask God every day to [reveal] that purpose to me," he said. He felt the breath of God.
That is the source of our hope. The Old Testament uses the same
word for breath, spirit, and wind.[ii] One of the passages that uses this word with
great frequency is today’s reading, Ezekiel 37.
Maybe it is tempting to go through and try to discern each use. “Well here, it means wind, like the wind in
the trees.” “And in this case it means,
breath, like a person’s breathing.” “But
in this other instance, it refers to God’s Spirit.” Such an exercise has its place, but in
understanding how we have life from God and what that means, it is better to
allow the definitions to flow together into an understanding and experience of
God at work.
The breath
of God hovered over the chaos even before God began creating (Genesis
1:1). This breath was God’s Spirit that
carried Ezekiel to the valley and showed him the vision. Within the vision, after the bones rattled
and reassembled and took on flesh and stood, they were still not alive. Not until animating breath of God filled them
did they become who God intended them to become.
That same wind/spirit/breath visited Mary. She became pregnant by the Holy Spirit and
she gave birth to the son of God, God in the flesh. At the end of John’s Gospel, the resurrected
Jesus breathes on the disciples and they receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22)
for the purpose of continuing the work of announcing the Kingdom and calling
dying people to life. At the end of
Matthew’s Gospel Jesus sends those same disciples to baptize people in the name
of the Spirit (Matthew 20:19).
In Genesis, in Ezekiel, in Matthew, in John, in
your life, in mine, and in the world today, life comes when we have the breath
of God in us. I want to spend time this
morning in deep prayer, thinking about resurrection, about the hope that we
have, and about being filled with God’s Spirit.
Perhaps when you hear words like discouragement and despair you
immediate think of your own life. You
are going through a difficult time or you fear that is coming. If that is so, as we sing this last song, I invite
you to come, kneel at the steps, and pray.
There is no shame here. This is a
place of healing. There is no need to
holdback or hide your fears or try to pretend you are not discouraged. Come.
Come and pour it out before the God who brings the dead to life. Please.
Let yourself be freed from the pressure to pretend all is well. Come before God.
Perhaps you are not in a rough patch but you
know someone who is. Someone you know,
someone you love is in the throes of depression. Come to steps, to the cross, to Christ on
behalf of that person. Pour your heart
before God, the giver of the Spirit, on behalf of another. This is intercession and I am asking you to
come and intercede for someone.
Or, maybe you are like me. Your own life is pretty good, but you feel
the burden over what’s happening in Nigeria or in Syria or in some place right
here in North Carolina were a group of people are suffering to the point of
despair. Come before Jesus, our Lord and
Savior. Come on behalf of the group under
siege, the people God has placed on your heart.
Come and ask the God who animates dry bones to give life to this people
you carry in your heart
We move from sermon into prayer right now. You have heard this invitation. Together we have walked in stories from the
Bible, stories of God bringing life. Our
best response is worship and prayer.
Come.
AMEN
Conclusion
-
Invite
people to bring their discouragement to the steps, to the cross, to Christ
