Sermon at All Saints Parish Church,
Whiteparish - Sixth Sunday in Easter Morning Worship – Sunday 5 May 2013
Ezekiel
37:1-14; John 14:23-29
May the words of my
mouth and the mediation of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O
Lord. Amen
Whenever I hear the reading from Ezekiel, which we heard this
morning, two images of different complexities and emotions come to my mind;
first of all a vision of a group of Afro-Americans singing their spiritual song
“Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones”
but also, secondly, those dreadful images of the skulls and bones from Pol
Pot’s Killing Fields of Cambodia. A
horrible image of human inhumanity.
The prophet Ezekiel was, himself a complex character. He was
a trainee priest and was looking forward to serving God in the Temple at
Jerusalem when suddenly, in 597 BC, the King of Judah, Jehoiachin, was forced
to surrender the city and its Temple to the invading Babylonian army, and found
himself taken into captivity and exile in Babylon itself. Along with the King went the cream of Judah’s
intelligentsia, a sort of ethnic cleansing in reverse, and such educated people
as Daniel (of the Lion’s Den), Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel went along with the
Royal Household – we are told some 10,000 in total.
For Ezekiel, especially after he would have heard of the
destruction of the Temple 10 years later, it must have seemed like the end of
all his hopes and dreams of serving God in the Holiest Place on earth. Now he, along with others, was forced to live
in a foreign land where the customs, food and religion were all very alien and
contrary to the strict laws of the Torah.
Ezekiel would have taken up his responsibilities as a priest
at the age of 30 and it seems that it was at this very age that he received a
direct call from God to prophesy to the exiled Jewish people – his role had
changed from that of priest for the maintenance of prayer, worship and
sacrifice in the Temple, to one of prophet (or in New testament terms,
evangelist). His call was accompanied by a vivid vision which greatly coloured
the whole of his ministry from that moment on, and we can read that call and
vision in the first three chapters of the Book of Ezekiel. The Book is extremely precise in its dating
of events and has been used by historical and theological scholars in
understanding the precise chronology of the events surrounding the Exile.
For the first ten years of his ministry, his message was
mainly one of telling the Jews in exile that the plight in which they found
themselves was due to God’s awesome judgment for their sins. He saw God as a vision of fire and glory
which contrasted significantly with the people’s sin in all its blackness; but
it seems that after the destruction of the Temple, Ezekiel’s message changed to
one of resurrection and restoration of
Jerusalem to God’s people. From that
moment on his message became one of hope and he started to look forward to the
time when the people would return to worship at a new Temple where they would
offer God perfect worship.
That, then is the background, to this hideous vision
recounted in Ezekiel 37 – the valley of the dry bones.
At first this seems to be a vision conjured up by Ezekiel
himself until we read “The Lord led me
out by the Spirit and set me in the middle of a valley...It was full of
bones”. In other words, it is God
who has brought this vision to Ezekiel – he is quite clear on this. The valley is dry, the bones are dessicated –
there is no sign of life at all – whoever were the owners of these skeletons –
they have been long since dead. No
recent death or calamity – a long term death.
Then God asks Ezekiel a question – “Son of Man, can these bones live?”
I am sure many of us would answer – “Of
course not, you must be joking – they are deader than the parrot in the Monty
Python sketch!” But Ezekiel gives
the right answer – “O Sovereign Lord, you
alone know”. Indeed, only God knows
many things. How often do we hear people
say in response to a difficult question “God
only knows!” We as Christians should
always respond – “yes, indeed, you are
quite right!” Try it next time the
opportunity arises!
God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones. At that moment God makes breath – or breathes
into the skeletons – the Hebrew word is ruach
meaning wind, breath, mind or spirit – that which makes us what we are –
that same Spirit which gave life to creation in Genesis. The word for Holy Spirit in Hebrew is Ruach
Hakkodesh and whilst it is not used in the context of Ezekiel’s dry bones, it
does appear in several places in the Old Testament.
As the breath comes across the bones they start joining
together and flesh appears until a whole upright army of the slain is now
covering the valley floor. As breath comes into these bodies so they rise and
become a huge living army. The seemingly
impossible has been achieved and as these soldiers rise up so God tells Ezekiel
that these resurrected bones represent Israel, the nation brought down to its
knees in captivity, and that the people will have their graves opened and be
restored to their land. These actions
will signify that God is great and can do anything. In other words, by this action, this miracle,
Ezekiel’s authority at prophesying the return to good times is endorsed. Ezekiel put his own faith in God to answer
whether or not it was possible for the bones to come back alive and did not
impose his own view or opinion – which no doubt would have been a negative one.
In our Gospel reading from John, Jesus again emphasises the
importance of putting your trust and faith in the Father and here, again, we
see a reference to the Ruach, the Ruach Hakkodesh, the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’s
prophesy that the Spirit will be sent by God in Jesus’s name to teach them
everything and to remind them of God’s greatness. Just as God tells Ezekiel that the bones will
be resurrected by the breath of the Spirit, so too does the resurrected Jesus
tell his disciples that although he is going away, he is also remaining here on
Earth in the form of the Holy Spirit.
That is a powerful message. After
the crucifixion and resurrection, and the atonement of the sins of humankind,
there will be left for us to continue Jesus’s work, the Holy Spirit. One of our hymns today, so carefully chosen,
has the chorus - “Thank you Oh my Father
for giving us your Son, and leaving Your Spirit, ‘til the work on earth is
done”.
I have heard repeatedly, the obituary of the Christian Faith
and in particular the Western Church.
Recently, in a series of APCMs we have been told of falling numbers and
the lack of interest of most people in things spiritual or religious. As one theologian put it recently, we in the
Western Church often find ourselves on the Mountain of Despair or worse still
on the Plateaus of Despondency or Apathy.
We look around and say – can these
dry bones live? We feel that we
simply can’t make these bones of a previous church army live – they are too
dead. Certainly we cannot do this on our
own; but if we allow the Holy Spirit to work, to come to our aid – to breathe
life into those dry bones – then anything is possible. It is said that the former Pope, John-Paul
II, had a particular difficult ecumenical issue on his mind and found it hard
to sleep. In the stillness of his insomnia,
he heard a quiet voice whispering in his ear
“Whose Church is it anyway?” The
Pope replied – “yours Lord”. “Then” came
the response, “stop worrying and let me
deal with the problem and you get some sleep”.
The secular world often feels like the Israelites in
exile. You only have to look at the
issues which are placed before our politicians and the problems of the economy,
immigration, poverty, unemployment, crime and so on. Like the Israelites we yearn for the good old
days. But were they so good?
The church today has a major role to play in our modern
society. As we approach Pentecost, let
us remember that Jesus left us the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Hakkadesh, to be, in
the words of John, our Advocate. Let us
breathe life back into our churches, let us go out with our revitalised army
and spread the good News that God came down to earth in human form to save us
from our sins, to be the direct channel through which we have direct access to
our Creator and left the Holy Spirit here to do his work through us. Let’s not leave the dry bones of our apathy
and despondency to rot away. Let’s make
ourselves ready for the Kingdom of Heaven, let’s live Spirit-filled lives.
Amen
