Easter
2
Ez
37:1-14
4/7/24
World
War I was characterized by trench warfare.
Unable to advance quickly due to the machine gun and massive artillery
fire, both sides dug into the ground for protection. They built elaborate trench systems that were
protected by machine gun bunkers and barbed wire.
The
area between the two trench lines became a no man’s land. Each side “went over the top” as they left
their trench and launched frontal assaults.
These attacks produced little gain and resulted in massive casualties.
A
particularly grewsome aspect of this form of warfare was that in many areas,
the bodies of killed soldiers were not recovered from no man’s land. The dead of both sides were left where they
had died to decompose. Over time some
became mere skeletons lying in the mud.
No man’s land was a place of death, strewn with those who had been
slain.
In the Old Testament lesson this
morning, Ezekiel sees a similar scene.
He tells us, “The
hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the
LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.” He sees a valley full of dry
bones – like that of a great army that has been slain.
Ezekiel was a priest who lived in the
sixth century B.C. He was part of a
second small group of exiles that was taken to Babylon in 597 B.C. Already these Judahites lived in exile even
while Jerusalem and the temple still stood.
Then, God’s final judgment upon Judah for its unfaithfulness and
idolatry arrived. In 587 B.C. the
Babylonians destroyed the temple, tore down the walls of the city, and took the
majority of the population into exile.
Our text takes place after that event.
Yahweh asked Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel answered that God knew whether this could happen. So God said to him, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
Ezekiel prophesied as commanded, and
there was a rattling sound as bones came together, and then sinews, flesh and
skin covered the bodies. However, the
prophet tells us that there was no breath in them. They were not alive. So Yahweh told Ezekiel
to prophesy to the breath. When he did
so, breath came into them, they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly
great army.
God explained to Ezekiel what he was
seeing. He said, “Son of man, these
bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up,
and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’” The people despaired as they were in exile.
They had no hope.
However, Yahweh spoke a word of hope. He said, “Therefore prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.’”
As Ezekiel saw the army that had been
raised through his prophesying, God used resurrection as a metaphor to describe
what he would do for Judah. They might seem dead. But God would restore them and bring them
back to their own land. He would give them life.
Yahweh did this in 538 B.C. Unexpectedly, Cyrus and the Persians defeated
the Babylonians. The Persian king then
issued a decree that the Judahites could return to their land and rebuild the
temple. Cyrus and the Persians were God’s instrument to bring the people home.
In our text resurrection is a metaphor
for what God will do for the nation. Yet this metaphor applied to the nation points
forward to what we are celebrating today.
Yahweh had identified the nation of Israel as his son. In the same way, the Messiah, the descendant
of King David, was identified as God’s son.
Jesus Christ was the Messiah sent by God. He was Israel reduced to One as he fulfilled
what the nation was supposed to be.
Ezekiel sees a
valley of dry, dead bones. This image
captures our spiritual condition. Paul
told the Ephesians that “you
were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” We were dead in our sins. We were dead from the moment we entered the
world. Jesus told Nicodemus, “That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit.” Sinful, fallen nature
produces more sinful, fallen nature.
From the first moment that our
abilities begin to demonstrate themselves, so does the presence of sin in our
lives. Sin is inside us, just waiting to
come out. Jesus said, “For out of the heart come evil
thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false
witness, slander.”
And the dry, dead bones of Ezekiel
also capture how we feel as we live in this fallen world. Judah complains,
“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.” The grind of life’s challenges wears us
down. We face ongoing health
problems. We have financial concerns and
questions about our future. We worry
about our family and friends as they go through struggles.
Because of the sin in our lives and in
the fallen creation, God acted to provide us with salvation. In the fullness of time he sent his Son into
the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
Because of her marriage to Joseph who descended from King David, Jesus was the
Christ. He was the Messiah who descended
from David. He was the fulfillment of
God’s promises for deliverance.
Jesus Christ was the revelation of
God’s love for us. Yet as we saw on Good
Friday this love was revealed by means of the cross. It was revealed as God gave his sinless Son up
to death. Paul told the Romans, “For one will scarcely die for a righteous
person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God
shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.”
God is the just and holy God who
punished our sin in Christ. Because he
has, they are no longer counted against us, and we have been reconciled with
God. Paul told the Corinthians, “All this is
from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the
world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death. Sin and death
go together, and the full power of sin could not be overcome by death. During this Eastertide we celebrate the fact
that God raised Jesus from the dead.
This is no metaphor as in our text, but the fulfillment as God raised
the Son of God – Israel reduced to One.
God defeated death in the resurrection of Jesus.
We hear in our
Gospel lesson how the risen Lord appeared in the midst of a locked room with
his disciples. He showed them his hands
and his side as he demonstrated he was the same Lord with same body that they
had known before his crucifixion. He had
the same body, but in the resurrection it had been transformed so that it can
never die again. In Jesus, the
resurrection of the Last Day has begun – the resurrection that will be ours
when Christ returns on the Last Day.
When we want to
say, “Our bones are
dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off,” the
resurrection of Jesus gives us hope. St.
Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he
has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead.” We have
a future because of Jesus. It is a life
where there will be no health problems or troubles of any kind. This hope gives us encouragement and strength
to keep going as we keep our eyes set on the risen Lord.
In our
text Yahweh talks about putting his Spirit within the nation. He had said in the previous chapter, “I will sprinkle
clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses,
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
And I
will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within
you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a
heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk
in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
God has given you the Spirit in the
waters of Holy Baptism. There you
received the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Spirit. Paul told the
Romans, “If the Spirit
of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ
Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his
Spirit who dwells in you.” The presence of the Spirit is the guarantee that you
will share in Jesus’ resurrection on the Last Day. The presence of the Spirit
also means that Christ’s resurrection power is already at work in your life.
It is the Spirit who prompts and
enables us to love and serve those around us. Paul told the Galatians, “through love serve one another. For the
whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’” Look for ways to help your
spouse, your parent, your sibling, and your friend. Do this, especially when it requires effort
and sacrifice on your part. Paul
described the Christian life when he said, “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law
of Christ.”
On this Sunday we continue to rejoice
in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our
Lord died on the cross in order to reconcile us to God. He was raised from the dead in order defeat
death. His resurrection gives us hope in
the midst of all circumstances. We keep
our eyes fixed on our risen Lord as his Spirit sustains us in the present. We wait with hope knowing that we will share
in Christ’s resurrection on the Last Day.
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