“Can These Bones Live?”
Ezekiel 37:1-14
April 16, 2023 anno Domini
Do you believe in the resurrection of your body? The women who went to the tomb on Easter morning believed in the resurrection. That is why they brought spices to care for Jesus body. Why care for a dead body if it has no use? no future? They believed in the resurrection, they just didn’t think it would happen that day. Do you believe in the resurrection of your body? That’s the question Ezekiel is asked in today’s Old Testament reading. The Lord, after giving Ezekiel a tour through that valley of dry bones asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
What Ezekiel saw was far worse than what the women were expecting to find. The body of Jesus would have been battered and bloody, but after they cleaned him up and washed his skin with spices, the body would have looked like Jesus. Ezekiel saw bones, scattered, disconnected, dried out bones. A whole body might have a chance of being revived, but not a bunch of scattered, dry bones.
“Son of man, can these bones live?” The expected answer, the reasonable answer would be, “There’s not a chance in Hades.” But the Lord is not reasonable, nor does He do what is expected. He is unreasonable when it comes to life and love. He chose to create humans when He knew they would sin. He chose before He ever created them to send His Son to die for their sins that He might undo their sin and its result – the death of the body. Even though they (those humans, which is really you) chose death over life, He chose to give them life again. The Lord chooses to give you life again. Ezekiel’s answer to the Lord’s question is the answer of faith in the unreasonable and unexpected God, “O Lord God, you know.”
On this second Sunday after Easter, it is impossible for me not to speak this Sunday’s name because it is so delightful in Latin. Quasimodo Geniti Quasi – like, modo – mode or manner – Geneti – new or beginning. We hear the English in the Introit – Like newborn infants.
St. John in the Epistle reading echoes this newborn theme. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And then John says how you are born of God – through faith in Him.
Breathing is the sign of life – whether for a newborn or when you’re on your deathbed. Those bones in Ezekiel had no life in them. All the breath had gone out of them. They were dead, dry, disconnected bones. The Lord told Ezekiel that those bones stood for the whole house of Israel. Those bones stood for God’s chosen people, a people to whom He had given life when he opened the womb of Sarah and gave her Isaac. The Lord gave them life again when he opened Jochebed’s womb, so that she bore Moses who delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt. But you remember the story. It is rehearsed every time we hear the Old Testament. Israel chose death over life. She chose the dead gods of pleasures and perversion over the God of life.
The bones Ezekiel saw were “slain” bones. They were the bones of the losers in a mighty battle. Why did they lose? They aligned themselves with God’s enemies. They chose to breathe the poison air of sin and selfishness and so they expired – the breath of life God gave them left them. Those bones didn’t deserve to live. They chose to sin and therefore chose to die. They chose to ignore the life bestowing Word of God and live life their own way which was the way of death.
But remember, every time I say “them,” I mean you. This Second of Easter, Quasimodo Geniti (there I got to say it twice, maybe we’ll go for three times before the sermon is over), this Sunday proclaims that new life comes by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the spoken Word of God to breathe the breath of life into you. The breath of life is the forgiveness of sins. If you’re not hearing the Word, you’re holding God’s breath from giving you life. If you’re living in sin – gladly, willingly, letting sin hang around in your life and chumming with it on Friday nights, you’re not living, you’re dying. If you’re putting your hope in Presidents or possessions, in work or play, in people or pleasure, then you are not living. You’re Israel all over again.
Saint John says those born of God overcome the world. Perhaps the reason we feel so overcome by the world is that we’ve got more faith in the world than the Word. We’ve put our trust in our favorite news channel instead of the news Thomas heard that first Easter, “Thomas, we have seen the Lord. He is alive.”
That is the one truth you dare not miss during the Easter season. Jesus lives, which means He breathes and what Jesus breathes out of His mouth is His Spirit and His Spirit breathes forgiveness and forgiveness is life. That’s what He gave the Apostles in the upper room. Jesus breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone it is withheld.” The resurrection of Jesus isn’t the Christian version of some pagan myth about new life in the springtime. The resurrection is not the promise that everyone will now live forever so let’s eat chocolate bunnies, hunt for eggs, and devours jelly beans.
Jesus lives because all the sin of all the world has been paid for. Forgiveness has been accomplished. Death can only claim you and the Devil can only hold you if you’re a sinner. You don’t die because you’re human. You die because you sin. You don’t want to die? Well, then breathe. Breathe in the forgiveness Christ won for you. Breathe in the unreasonable love the Lord has for you that He would breathe in the poison air of your sins and give up His spirit, His very life for you.
Jesus didn’t breathe His Spirit everywhere. He breathed on His men to breathe into you. He breathed His Word and forgiveness into the water in your baptism. He breathes His Word out of your Pastor’s mouth in the absolution and in the sermon. His Word puts Christ’s living body and blood under bread and wine so that you can inwardly digest the forgiveness of your sins.
When you look over the Scripture readings for Quasimodo Geniti (there, that’s three times, I’m good now), you see dry, scattered, bones in the Old Testament. You hear about overcoming the world in the Epistle, and you find Thomas needing proof for his faith in the Gospel reading. Sounds like the good people I know at Redeemer. Slain by your own sins and selfishness. Wanting to overcome the world when it seems the world has overcome the church. Needing faith to believe that Christ is risen and that He is “my Lord” and “my God.” Faced with Ezekiel’s question, “Can these bones live?” Your faith needs pure spiritual milk, and that milk is the Word of God, the Word which testifies to Jesus, the Word which breathes forgiveness for your sins, the Word by which the Spirit of Jesus breathes life to you. In the name of Jesus. Amen.