Hope for our generation

Listen to the sermon. 

Ezekiel was one of the Israelites taken captive at the fall of Jerusalem 

and moved from his home in Jerusalem to Babylon. 

Basically his world has been destroyed - his home ransacked 

- his career as a priest crumbled when the temple was demolished 

and he was carted off, along with thousands of others, 

Most sent to Babylon.  

So instead of being a priest leading the people in temple worship, 

he became a prophet - seeing visions from God 

and hearing the words of the Lord: 

bringing messages to the people of God 

in their foreign land.  

In this visitation of the Lord, Ezekiel is transported to a valley 

and the valley is filled with bones - dry bones – 

that seem to have been there for centuries.  

And the Lord asks him, "Can these bones live?" 

 Well, what would you say?  

Ezekiel, says, "You know" - implied in that is 

"How should I know?  You're God, you tell me."  

And God tells him to prophesy - prophesy to the bones.  

And I can see Ezekiel thinking, "wait a minute, 

these are bones - they got no ears to hear – 

why should I waste my time?"

Ezekiel looks out over that valley of dry bones – 

hopeless, unredeemable.  They represent all that is lost in Israel – 

the destroyed temple, the lost homes, 

the broken and bleeding people, the lost jobs, 

all the hopeless and helpless situations that can 

go along with the aftermath of a conquered, 

defeated people.  

What are the hopeless situations - the dry bones in our lives today?  

So many possible out there - a bankrupt business, 

a failed marriage, a broken relationship, a flooded house,

unfulfilled dreams, lost jobs, lost loved ones, 

illnesses, cancer, death, and disappointment.

Ezekiel envisions all that and more as he looks at 

this immense graveyard representing total desolation – 

but he follows what the Lord tells him to do 

and he begins to prophesy - and as he does, 

an amazing thing happens, 

what he prophesies begins to come true.  

The bones begin to rustle - they come together and 

sinew and muscle appear and flesh covers it all.  

But there is no breath - and so God tells him to 

prophesy to the breath - the winds - the spirit – 

and that breath (or spirit) comes and 

enters the bodies & they live & stand &

they are more than Ezekiel can count.

You know, I was at a Eucharist once - and it was just me and the priest – 

it's only a side note that it was my birthday – 

it was just that it was a weekday Eucharist here at Grace

and I was the only one who showed up.  

So the priest invited me to come 

and stand at the altar with him.  

As he began the Eucharist – 

I became aware of a whole host filling the church, 

communing with us - if I turned and looked down the nave, 

it was bare, empty - but from my peripheral vision 

I could see this happening.  

it was like every angel and every person who had ever worship in

this place were gathered to join us.

So I have an idea what Ezekiel might have felt like at this point – 

a very surreal experience that makes you wonder 

what kind of parallel universe you've fallen into.

And God says, "This is the whole house of Israel and they say, 

'Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost'."  

But God has an answer – "I am the Lord and 

I will open your graves and raise you up.  

I will put my spirit within you and you shall live."  

God brings hope and life out of the 

hopeless and helpless situations in our lives.

This is the hope of Israel - the resurrection that the Pharisees claim – 

here is that starting point for the kind of faith 

that God is calling for.  This is the hope of the nation – 

the whole house of Israel. This is a communal hope – 

not an individual hope.  

I think maybe it's not unlike the hope of our nation 

as we watched the events of 9-11.  Out of the rubble and ashes 

of the twin towers came the determination of a diverse people 

- out of the symbol of defeat, came a unifying hope of a nation – 

That we would rise again.  

What Ezekiel reported seeing 

gave hope to a defeated nation – 

the hope that they would indeed live again. 

 Some people find our current political situation almost as hopeless -

But God is even in the midst of it and he can bring

hope to a hopeless generation.

God does not leave us in those barren, dry, parched places – 

crying over those dry bones.

Our world cries out for that kind of hope – 

the kind of hope that brings life and resurrection.  

If you have seen the Harry Potter movies 

I don’t remember which one but there was one

– where Professor Dumbledore’s bird - a phoenix – 

wilted away, burst into flames and became a pile of ashes.  

Harry was devastated at having witnessed this scene – 

but the professor assured him that this was a part of life 

and that the bird would indeed rise again out of the ashes.

Many years ago Sam & I saw the movie "Flight of the Phoenix" – 

In this classic tale, a plane goes down and is lost in the desert.  

It seemed like a hopeless situation with insurmountable odds 

- and yet hope arises from unexpected places.  

It's a story of faith - faith which almost crumbles when they find out 

the person designing the escape aircraft isn't exactly 

what they think, but only a model airplane designer.  

But out of hope and necessity, 

they pull together and overcome the odds to live again. 

These stories demonstrate a desperate need for the story 

of resurrection out of death – 

the need of the people for the kind of hope 

that is presented in our lessons this morning – 

the understanding that we can live again.  

We need to understand that when things seem the darkest, 

we can have still have hope because God is here with us.

We find the same kind of situation in our gospel lesson, 

just a smaller scale.  Here is not a valley of dry bones – 

here is a single person, in the grave four days.  

The 'four days' seems strange to us – 

especially since we find Jesus himself was raised in three days.  

But four days is significant - the Israelites believed that 

the soul or spirit of a person stayed in the vicinity 

for three days before rising up to heaven.  

So the four days means the soul has departed – 

making the miracle even more unlikely.

Jesus was late – 

and what do we do when God doesn't come through 

when or like we think he should?  

Mary and Martha berated Jesus - "

Lord, if you had only been here..."  

God doesn't always act in the way we expect – 

and how do we handle that.  But you see, Jesus had come  -  

Jesus calls forth life even amid  the conditions of death.  

Just as people looking out over that valley of dry bones 

would call it hopeless - so the family of Lazarus 

called the loss of their brother hopeless.  

And Jesus comes - not when they wanted him to, but he does come – 

and he comforts them, his presence is tangible – 

he weeps with them at their loss.  

Although Martha tells Jesus that she believes 

that God will give him whatever he asks for, 

she doesn't believe that this is possible – 

the spirit has already left that place.

"Lord, if you had only been here - our brother would not have died..."  

In our darkest hour, Jesus comes.  Jesus calls us forth 

from the tomb of broken hearts and disappointments, 

from the tombs of rejection and loneliness, 

from the tomb of self-loathing and meaninglessness. 

As humans, we fix our eyes on a goal, 

quite often to the exclusion of other possibilities.  

As humans in this world, we too often want what we want, 

when we want it, the way we want it, 

because we've been convinced by the world 

around us that we are in control.  

But the truth is that we are not in control 

and sometimes our hopes and dreams must die 

before we become capable of accepting a new idea 

or a new dream.  

Sometimes we don't see or even look for the window of opportunity 

that is open for us until the door we are so focused on 

is slammed shut.

Jesus comes to open new doors, to cry with us when we are devastated 

and then to help us to new understanding and new life.  

He comes to restore the spirit that has left our bodies.  

Out of the conditions of death and devastation 

can arise new life.  

Jesus calls forth life even amid the conditions of death.  

Can you hear his call?

I am a recovering smoker.  I smoked for 30 years.  

After my first year in seminary, 

Jesus called me out of the tomb of destruction – 

I had been diagnosed as borderline emphysema 

but I continued to smoke. Then I was having to use my inhaler 

two or three times a day – 

pre-cursors of the conditions of death – 

and yet I kept smoking.  

God finally told me that if I was going to live 

to proclaim his good news – 

I was going to have to come out of that 

tomb of death and destruction and walk in life.  

I quit smoking.  Recovering alcoholics and 

recovering drug addicts can tell you the same story, 

Jesus calls forth life even amid the conditions of death.  

Please pray with me.

Lord, open our hearts and minds to hear you when you call, 

To follow you where you lead us

And to trust you to restore our spirit

And to bring new life and hope in all the situations

And circumstances of our lives.

Amen.