Dan Herold | Ezekiel 37:1-14 | 4/2/2017
Have you ever built something from the ground up? Maybe it was a shed or even a house. If you haven’t done it yourself I’d be willing to guess that all of you have seen something being built from the ground up—be it a house you’ve lived in or the apartments going up just down the street. You’ve seen how long it takes to build a building…even a small storage shed takes a lot of time and planning to build. Have you ever really thought about all the effort and coordination necessary to assemble some of those big skyscrapers you see in big cities? Just think how many parts there are and how each part needs to be placed in the right place at the right time in order for the building to come together the way that it’s supposed to.
The tallest building in the the United States is in New York City—One World trade Center. It’s the skyscraper that was built on the site where the two towers that were destroyed by the terrorist attacks on 9/11 once stood. This magnificent building stands almost 2,000 feet tall. It took around 7 years to build. Now, imagine yourself standing on that site on the first day of construction. You’re standing on a site that has seen massive devastation and destruction and your’e surrounded with a seemingly endless mountain of building supplies and equipment. You’ve seen the plans for the intended outcome of this project and it’s beautiful, but it’s your job to organize those raw materials and make them into a skyscraper. That task would seem a bit overwhelming to me—where would you even start?
Building something out of the most basic raw materials is a daunting task to undertake. In fact, it is such a huge job that a lot of people won’t even try making something from scratch. For God, though, making something out of nothing is no problem at all—he’s been doing it since the beginning of time. Every now and then we need to be reminded of how powerful God is. Sometimes he reminds us of his power by sending some sort of natural disaster or calamity. Sometimes he allows our faith to be tested so that we realize how awesome our God really is. And sometimes he just shows us something really cool that no one other than the creator of the universe could show us. That’s what he did in our Scripture lessons this morning.
In our gospel reading we heard how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after he had already been in the grave a few days—something only the Lord of life could accomplish. But since we weren’t there to hear Jesus tell Lazarus to come out of his tomb and to see a man we had seen die walk out of tomb in which we had placed him, we are going to take a close look at our Old Testament reading. There we see God and the prophet Ezekiel paint a very vivid picture of a valley of dry and dead bones come to life at the sound of God’s word.
Not only does God bring the bones back to life before the prophet Ezekiel though, but he also foreshadows what Jesus is going to do for us. So this morning let’s look at how God gives life to the dead—to the Israelites and to us.
Ezekiel begins telling us about this vision of the dry bones by setting the scene for us. He says,
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “‘Son of man, can these bones live?”
Now, normally a person would answer that question, “No.” But Ezekiel recognized who he was talking with here—the author of all life. If anyone could make those bones live it would be God. So Ezekiel replies,
“O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
And then…Ezekiel was in for quite an experience.
God said to him,
“Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”
Think about that for a second. God told Ezekiel to speak to these dry dead bones. And not just that but to tell them that they were going to come to life! They would regain everything they needed to be alive, and then…they would know the Lord and who he is.
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Do you think that just maybe God was trying to make a point? Do you think that just maybe the Israelites had been a little bit hard headed so God had to do something so miraculous that it would get through to them? When this exchange between God and Ezekiel occurred the Southern Kingdom of Judah had fallen and had been taken into captivity in Babylon. The Israelites had ignored God for so long that God was forced to punish them with exile, but he still was a loving God who cared for them. He knew that they still might be a little hard headed so just like he had to proclaim his Law in a grand fashion, through exile, he also proclaims the gospel in a grand fashion by giving life to the dead.
So, Ezekiel did what God told him to do.
“He prophesied as he was commanded. And as he was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. He looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.”
Now, imagine that! All these bones, these dead dry bones, start rattling together and they snap into place—what an amazing and terrifying sight! But, like Ezekiel said, “There was no breath in them.”
But God has more to say, he’s not done yet! So God says to Ezekiel,
“Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ”
And Ezekiel did as he was told,
“He prophesied as God commanded him, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”
Now, if that doesn’t get your attention, it’s hard telling what will. God gave life to these dead bones to demonstrate his power, but it would appear that Ezekiel was the only one that saw it—so God explains what this means to his prophet so that Ezekiel could spread the message to God’s people.
God explained to Ezekiel,
“Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’ ”
God’s proclamation of Law had come across loud and clear to Israel. The Israelites felt like they were dead in exile. They cried out to the Lord that their bones were dry, their hope was gone, and they had been cut off. And they had been cut off! They were cutoff from the temple, their place of worship, the place where God commanded them to offer their sacrifices to him. But they weren’t without hope, because God still cared for his people. He would soon allow them to return to their homes and rebuild the temple and give them another gracious opportunity to turn to the Lord as their only source of help.
Much like the Israelites, by nature we were cut off. We were born into sin inherited all the way back from Adam and Eve. We were powerless to come to God on our own. We were like those dry bones or that plain block of stone—but God did something miraculous. He sent his Son, Jesus, to be our Savior. He sent Jesus to suffer and die for us—to conquer death for us—so that we would be restored as God’s own children. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection God breathed life back into our spiritually dead souls. And by doing that, by that miraculous proclamation of the gospel, we know that he is the Lord.
So when we are asked the question, “Can these bones live?” We can answer “Yes! But only by the grace of God.” A sculptor can make stone look incredibly lifelike, but no matter how much you know or how hard you work you cannot give life to what has died—only God is powerful enough to do that. Thankfully there is one we can call our own who has the power to give life. Our friend, our brother, our Savior Jesus by his perfect life, death, and resurrection has guaranteed eternal life for all who trust in him. On our own we would be nothing but dead dry bones, but through faith in Christ we have been given new life by our almighty Lord. What a wonderful gift it is and what a beautiful gift. Out of dead dry bones God has given us new life—new life in which to praise and thank, and serve and obey him who is our creator, our God, and our Savior.
Amen.