Dear Friends,
As Christians, we consider the Bible the sacred, inspired word of God, handed down to us by hundreds of generations of devoted people. Both testaments of our Bible combine to become the source of the faithful witness of God’s people. The Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures) records God’s activity with us from the creation to just before Jesus’s birth. Not including the creation stories, the Hebrew Scriptures span a period of about two thousand years. The New Testament (the Christian Scriptures), on the other hand, focus on a much shorter period of time. The time from the birth of Jesus to the writing of the Book of Revelation was less than 100 years. It is difficult to keep the various aspects of the early church’s history clear in our minds, let alone the history of our faith ancestors.
I know it’s still Thursday, but both the Sunday lectionary and the daily lectionary always include four readings. We generally focus on only one or two readings, but for this Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, I want to examine all four readings, and thus, we begin next Sunday’s readings today.
I’d like to start with Ezekiel 37:1-14, one of the two readings from the Hebrew Scriptures for Sunday. Please take a moment and carefully read and savor this wonderful prophecy story of the valley of the dry bones. Here’s the context: Ezekiel was among the first group of exiles taken to Babylonia in 597 BC, the year that Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian king. Based on historical knowledge of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, and biblical scholarly understanding of the general range of David’s reign, we can postulate that Ezekiel lived about 300 years after King David and 600 years before Jesus.
Do you remember teaching the body parts to a toddler just beginning to talk? I do. I remember pointing to each part as I sang, “Toe bone connected to the foot bone; foot bone connected to the heel bone,” working all the way up to the “neck bone connected to the head bone.” This nursery ditty is also a song, variously called “Dem Bones,” “Dry Bones,” and “Dem Dry Bones,” which was written in the 1920’s by James Weldon Johnson and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson. You might recall our singing another of their songs two months ago, when our church rang as our voices rose to their beautiful, rousing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (# 563 in our hymnal). “Dem Bones,” often sung with great fervor, especially around the campfire and in Vacation Bible School, was inspired by the passage we read from the prophet Ezekiel. Its two verses conclude with the resounding affirmation we know so well, “Now hear the word of the Lord,” the very same words we read in verse 4. Even in the depths of desperate exile made even worse when the spirit of the Lord brought him to what must have been a terrifying vista – a valley brimming with dry bones – Ezekiel did as God commanded. He prophesized to the dry, dusty bones. And the bones came together, forming into a vast multitude (verse 10) of living beings.
The Hebrew word “ruach” can mean wind, breath, or spirit. As you read this passage, pay attention to those words in our English translations. You’ll see that all three words are used to convey Ezekiel’s and God’s message. We are not alive in the fullest sense unless we experience God’s gift of wind, breath, and spirit, God’s ruach. Lose yourself in the elegance of verse 8, for example, when the bones had come together, and been covered in sinew and flesh, but remained dead; “there was no breath in them.” Verse 9 continues the story, “Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’” And in verse 14, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…”
It’s not surprising that the Johnson brothers were inspired by this wonderful story to write their song. The story is almost cinematic – how can we help but see the valley, watch the bones come together, see the sinews and skin wrap around them, and then, with God’s ruach, see them quicken into new life? How can we help but hear the word of the Lord? This is not a bodily resurrection; this is the resurrection of “the whole house of Israel” (verse 11). Just as God gave the gift of new life through God’s ruach to the dry bones in that desolate valley, God gives life to the entire company of his people, to all of us.
God promises that “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil.”
God not only restores us; God brings us home. Our current plight is far from equivalent to the forced emigration and enslavement that is Ezekiel’s exile, but now, in these days of social and physical distancing and self-isolation, we might feel as if we are in exile. What good news it is that God’s spirit mingles with our breath to give us life and bind us together as a community!
Ezekiel confirms that we are not alone; we live, and we live in community and kinship with one another. Be assured, my friends, God is with us!
Let us pray together:
Holy God, creator of wind, breath, and spirit, in our darkened valleys, you bring light; in our crumbling communities, you build your holy realm; as disease spreads around our world, our lives are renewed and fortified by your love. Holy Spirit, Breath of God, you live in every corner of our souls; you bind us together as a single people who share this tormented world, and you bind us to God. With your loving presence, you breathe God’s peace into our lives. Thanks be to you, God of wind, breath, and spirit. Amen.