Life in the Valley of Dry Bones

Text: Ezek. 37:1-14

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! There’s a saying that’s attributed to Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” And indeed, on this night as we gather once again to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, we can’t help but see the truth of it. We’ve heard of the formless void turned to an ordered cosmos, of the Flood and the ark, of Isaac on the altar, of Israel at the Red Sea. Over and over again, God proclaims a promise into circumstances that we would find impossible. And then, on the power of that word of promise, darkness is destroyed by light, waters part, death is averted. It’s all a variation on the theme—it looks like things are over, that death and darkness and silence are all that’s left—and according to our human estimation, they are. But then God acts. He changes it. His Word arrives and creates a new reality. Resurrection is not a surprise ending, not when we look at how God has acted throughout the history of this universe. God’s Word always arrives in a dry and dead place just before He changes it forever.

            So we come to yet another resurrection. We’ve been tracking them throughout the history of Scripture this past Lent. We hear tonight of the prophet Ezekiel brought out in the Spirit to a valley filled with bones, long dead, dried up under countless days in the heat of the sun and the merciless elements. Thus far, as we’ve heard of these various resurrections, it’s been among those recently deceased—days at the most. But here it’s been longer—much longer; longer than hope for resuscitation would dare to flicker.

“Son of man,” the Lord asks Ezekiel, “can these bones live?” And Ezekiel gives a wise answer. He refuses to be so presumptuous that he could know what’s possible and what’s impossible, so he doesn’t answer “Yes.” Nor will he allow himself to fall into despair, so neither will he answer “No.” He instead gives an honest answer—the answer of one who knows what the Lord has accomplished: in the safety of Noah’s ark, at the altar of Abraham, on the shores of the Red Sea. In the desolation of that valley, Ezekiel says, “O Lord God, you know.”  Ezekiel understands that ends and beginnings, death and life, are God’s domain.

So when we hear the cry of the Lord’s fallen people in this prophecy, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off,” we should know that it’s not the real end. The exiles of Israel in Ezekiel’s time declared that all was lost. They had fallen in battle and been dragged away into a land that was not their own. It would only be a matter of time before they were absorbed into the faceless mass of the empires that had crushed them and they would disappear forever. Isaac’s descendants wouldn’t be spared on the altar anymore. The chariots they had avoided at the Red Sea had finally caught up with them and trampled them. They were being washed away in the flood of humanity sunk at the bottom of history.

But the Lord does not launch into a lesson about what’s possible or impossible. He doesn’t lecture them about His sovereignty or their little minds grasping for understanding in a universe that’s bigger and more mysterious than they can imagine. He simply says, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them… ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.’” And when Ezekiel preached the Word over that multitude of bones, they came together, with sinew and muscle laid over them, skin covering them. Even when there was not yet breath, the Lord told His prophet to preach to the breath, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” And then the breath, the Spirit, came into them; they lived and stood on their feet—an exceedingly great army.

            “Son of man, can these bones live?” You—sons and daughters of man—can your bones live? Or are the waters of grief, of depression, the flood of everything that you should do—that you need to do but can’t—dragging you down to the depths? Have the chariots of your worst fears—a terrifying diagnosis, bad news from the bank, the temptation you just can’t outrun anymore—finally caught you, trampling your hope in its spokes, under the hooves of hell’s horses? Are you settled in the valley of dry bones, the valley of the shadow of death, a low point in your life, in history, in your heart; your bones dried up, not a scrap of life or hope or joy or peace or light left? “Son of man, can these bones live?”

            “O Lord God, you know.” The valley of dry bones, the one spread out before Ezekiel; the one that cuts through all of human history; the valley lying before you—is not the final truth you think it is, that you feel it is. For there is One who knows that these dry bones can live, and that it will happen when He causes breath to enter them, when He lays sinews and flesh and skin on them; when He puts life back into them and they live; when He resurrects them. And so He sends His prophets to breathe life into those who seemed irretrievably lost: to the son of Zarephath’s widow, to the Shunammite’s child, to the man thrown into a grave mid-flight from attackers—the Lord bringing life back to those for whom it seemed most impossible. Yet, there was just something more needed to make it fully complete—something to make this victory of life over death total and eternal. And now, at Easter, with His own resurrection, we see that the Lord has done something about all of it for all time.

            The empty tomb of Easter is the final and definitive valley of dry bones. But Jesus’ resurrection is not just history repeating itself, even if it rhymes. Here God does not simply repeat the pattern of death and resurrection. He fulfills it. Jesus doesn’t escape death the way Isaac did on the altar, or the way Israel did at the Red Sea. No—He entered it, He stayed there in it for His sabbath rest, and then He walked out the other side. He destroyed it from the inside. Easter doesn’t just add another example of resurrection. Easter closes it and redefines everything that has come before it—it’s all been leading up to this.

            And now the Word of promise arrives for you. The Word of God, knit together in the womb of Mary with sinew and flesh and skin, is now preached to you so that you will be resurrected. He comes to all the places in your life that look hopeless, that appear dead, fruitless, dried up. His Word that gives life, His Spirit, His breath, is breathed into you tonight. The resurrection of Jesus is not only a past event and a future hope—although is both of those things—but it is also a present reality. The Spirit that hovered over the waters, that rushed into the dry bones to make them live, is the same Spirit that you have received in the baptism that you have remembered tonight. Come from the four winds, O Breath, O Spirit, and breathe on these slain, that they may live! The Word of the Lord who rose from the dead now brings you His life in His body and blood. It still stands today; it still gives resurrection life today. That’s why we say Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! In the name of Jesus, the eternally Living One. Amen.