We were alive once. We ran beneath the Sun. Danced in the moonlight. We hugged our children goodnight and kissed our wives goodbye. We knew laugh, and happiness. We knew sorrow and pain. The air was fresh and clean in the Spring. The Sun was dry and hot in the Summer. The cold winter wind stung our faces and froze in our lungs. But Spring always followed winter and so life when on, one season after another, each one filled with joy or pain, but always full. Our lives were rich and full and free. We were alive . . . once.
That is the story they told me, as I walked around the valley that evening. When God asked me, “Can this bone live?” I did not know the answer, but I did know they could talk. As God led me through that battlefield (because that is what it was, I knew what it was the moment we set foot there) they spoke to me. They told me about their sons and daughters, their wives and sweethearts. They told me of their livihoods, of their childhood homes. They told me about catching butterflies on warm summer days, just to stare mesmerized by their wings, as they slowly waved up and down, and of catching fireflies in the cool of the evenings. Holding them carefully between two cupped hand and looking in through the hole created where two thumbs touched to watch their light off and on and off again.
Each one telling its own story. Each one having lived just like the next. But these bones; these bones in this valley, just as all bones, that can be seen are, were dead. It is the very nature of just being bones, no matter what you once were, or who you might have been, when you are nothing but bones, you are dead. This was the valley of death and instead of assuring that there was no evil to fear here, God asked me,
“Can these bones live?” I know a trap when I see one, a trick question when I hear one, “God, only you know the answer to that.”
So then God tells me to preach to the bones, “Oh, bones! Hear the word of the Lord.” I am so glad no one was there that day. They thought I was insane when I laid on my side for over a year. They just about committed me to and institution when I told them, God instructed me to cook my meals over a fire made with the dung of cows. If they saw me now, preaching to a valley of dry dead bones, that would be it; they would not merely think that the words I spoke were nothing but that of a raving mad man, they would know it.
So I preached to the dry bones, and it must have been one powerful sermon, unlike any I had ever preached before, or will ever been preached by man or woman 'til the death of the earth itself. The sermon I preached that day, were not merely words of life taken into the ears, to be done with, as what's between two ears will do with words. Perhaps it was because bones do not have ears, nor what is traditionally held between two ears, because until the audiences that usually hear my sermons, those bones got up immediately and did something about what I was saying.
They got up right then and there, the bones came together and formed muscle and sinew and flesh. And before I knew it I was no longer standing in the valley of the dry bones, I was standing in the valley of the undead army. I say, “undead,” because I know not, how else to describe them. They were flesh and bone, they stood there just as you or I might, but they did not yet live. There was no breath within them, they stood, but they were not alive.
But God was not yet done. Apparently, I had not said all that needed to be said to them. So, I gave them another sermon, I preached to them a second time. This time the wind of creation filled their lungs, they were filled with breath and they lived. The dry bones of that valley lived!
The people of Israel at this time were in exile. Everything they once held dear was gone. Life as they had known it had passed away. The little shop into which they had invested their life's savings, and their life's work was nothing but a hallow burnt out shell, hundreds of miles from where they now were. The last time they had seen the cities of their birth, they the smoke was rising over the rumble of what has once been. Their lives felt as empty, hallow and dead, as the bones in that valley that day. All they had once known was dead. All their hopes and dreams were as long gone as the army that lay strewn on the valley floor. They were the walking dead, performing tasks, eking out a livelihood, but not truly living. Their lives were dead, their homes were dead, and everything they once held dear was dead. And it was into the wreckage and into the bones of what once was the lives of these people into which God spoke new life, it was into the lifeless forms that were once the people Israel that God breathed life, new life!
Sometimes we find ourselves standing over the dry bones of what once was. Look around and we see nothing but death and destruction. We feel the pain and the sting of loss. We see the graves of hopes and our dreams, shattered and strewn around us. It seems as if our lives are filled with nothing but death, nothing but loneliness. The landscape of our lives is foreign, nothing is familiar. It is as if we woke up one day and found ourselves living lives that are unrecognizable. The fertile fields of all we once thought would be have been burned and salted and there is no going back. We are dead, our hopes are dead, and our dreams are dead. And even if that is an exaggeration of the circumstances it feels as if it is true.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a place like that of Israel, wonder where God could be when we are living in a place that seems so far from the hand of God. We look up to the sky and we cannot see God there. We look at the pain through which we are walking and it seems there is no way God could be in any of this. The loneliness we feel is so palpable that we know that God is not in it and it so solidly forms a wall around everything in our lives that surely there is no way God could penetrate it. We will live forever in this darkness. We will continue to exist in this place that seems to be beyond the reach of even the God who created all places. We are in Sheol, the Pit, where God is not, the land of the waking dead. Where we do nothing but exist, because as surely as we know anything, we know this; this that we are doing each day, is not living.
It is into the death that we know, into the destruction that we have seen, into the brokenness of the bones of our lives that God speaks this morning. As we stand over this valley in our lives, God comes to us this morning and says, “Can these bones live?” I am sure we want to say, “Yes, yes of course God.” But most of us are more like Ezekiel, most of us see the state of affairs our lives are in now and the most faith we can muster is, “Only you know God.” “I mean, if you say they can, I am sure they can,” while thinking to ourselves, “Dead is dead. Once a mirror has fallen to the floor and shattered there is no way it can be whole again. I don’t know how I can ever know peace, full healing, or wholeness again.”
But God speaks, over the brokenness in our lives, God speaks over our lost dreams, over our shattered hopes and our brokenness, over our loneliness, over the destruction, the pain and the loss and even the death and says, “Live!” And when the breath of God lost dreams they are found and made new. When God speaks over shattered hopes and brokenness they are made whole again. When the spirit of God fills our loneliness, it is filled and we are not alone. When the wind of God blows over the destruction, the pain, the loss and yes even the death in our lives, it is healed and life can truly be LIVED once again. What was dead can be alive. This is the message God gives to us today, in the places where we are, waiting.
I do want to point out something that sometimes we forget. It did not happen all at once. We like our miracles, our healing, our wholeness to come like our frozen meals, now. Pop it in the microwave, wait 30 seconds and it is done. We are so use getting the things we want immediately. We can have our money right now, anytime of the day or night, by going to a machine. Put in a card, and a four digit pin and money just appears. There are 24 hour McDonald’s, we can go to the drive thru (we don’t have to even get out of the car) and have our nuggets or hot fudge Sunday right now, even at 2am. Amazon is even working on a system of drones that can deliver packages to your door within hours of ordering, instead of the unendurably long two days we have to wait now (I still remember when you had to wait four to six weeks for something ordered out of a catalog – almost long enough to have forgotten you had ordered it).
We want our healing today, right now, this very instant. And sometimes it happens that way. But most of the time it happens little by little, first the bones come together, and then the muscles and sinews form and eventually flesh covers it all over and then finally the Spirit of God fills our lives once again. It takes a long time for us to find the fullness of life we once knew. Sometimes it is an imperceptibly slow process, where bit by bit, God takes the shattered pieces of our lives and one by one mends them, until finally we are whole once again. It takes a long time and it seems like the process will never be done. But it is happening, healing is occurring, our loneliness is being filled, we are being healed, we are being made whole again. God is working a miracle in our lives, even when it does not seem to be the case. Even when it takes too long (in our estimation) it is happening. God is making the bone lives. They can live they will live. We might not see it today. We might not be able to feel it tomorrow. It may not even be next week or next year, but one day we will wake up and the breath of God will fill us and we will be alive once again.
We are like Israel waiting for the messiah. He did not come the first year they were in exile. He did not come the last year they were in exile. Jesus did not even come the year they returned to the houses and their lands. And so they waited.
And today we continue to wait for the fullness of salvation, for the wholeness that will come from the redemption of all creation, which will only come when Christ comes again and all the earth is restored to its creation glory and we are made truly alive again.
That is the story they told me, as I walked around the valley that evening. When God asked me, “Can this bone live?” I did not know the answer, but I did know they could talk. As God led me through that battlefield (because that is what it was, I knew what it was the moment we set foot there) they spoke to me. They told me about their sons and daughters, their wives and sweethearts. They told me of their livihoods, of their childhood homes. They told me about catching butterflies on warm summer days, just to stare mesmerized by their wings, as they slowly waved up and down, and of catching fireflies in the cool of the evenings. Holding them carefully between two cupped hand and looking in through the hole created where two thumbs touched to watch their light off and on and off again.
Each one telling its own story. Each one having lived just like the next. But these bones; these bones in this valley, just as all bones, that can be seen are, were dead. It is the very nature of just being bones, no matter what you once were, or who you might have been, when you are nothing but bones, you are dead. This was the valley of death and instead of assuring that there was no evil to fear here, God asked me,
“Can these bones live?” I know a trap when I see one, a trick question when I hear one, “God, only you know the answer to that.”
So then God tells me to preach to the bones, “Oh, bones! Hear the word of the Lord.” I am so glad no one was there that day. They thought I was insane when I laid on my side for over a year. They just about committed me to and institution when I told them, God instructed me to cook my meals over a fire made with the dung of cows. If they saw me now, preaching to a valley of dry dead bones, that would be it; they would not merely think that the words I spoke were nothing but that of a raving mad man, they would know it.
So I preached to the dry bones, and it must have been one powerful sermon, unlike any I had ever preached before, or will ever been preached by man or woman 'til the death of the earth itself. The sermon I preached that day, were not merely words of life taken into the ears, to be done with, as what's between two ears will do with words. Perhaps it was because bones do not have ears, nor what is traditionally held between two ears, because until the audiences that usually hear my sermons, those bones got up immediately and did something about what I was saying.
They got up right then and there, the bones came together and formed muscle and sinew and flesh. And before I knew it I was no longer standing in the valley of the dry bones, I was standing in the valley of the undead army. I say, “undead,” because I know not, how else to describe them. They were flesh and bone, they stood there just as you or I might, but they did not yet live. There was no breath within them, they stood, but they were not alive.
But God was not yet done. Apparently, I had not said all that needed to be said to them. So, I gave them another sermon, I preached to them a second time. This time the wind of creation filled their lungs, they were filled with breath and they lived. The dry bones of that valley lived!
The people of Israel at this time were in exile. Everything they once held dear was gone. Life as they had known it had passed away. The little shop into which they had invested their life's savings, and their life's work was nothing but a hallow burnt out shell, hundreds of miles from where they now were. The last time they had seen the cities of their birth, they the smoke was rising over the rumble of what has once been. Their lives felt as empty, hallow and dead, as the bones in that valley that day. All they had once known was dead. All their hopes and dreams were as long gone as the army that lay strewn on the valley floor. They were the walking dead, performing tasks, eking out a livelihood, but not truly living. Their lives were dead, their homes were dead, and everything they once held dear was dead. And it was into the wreckage and into the bones of what once was the lives of these people into which God spoke new life, it was into the lifeless forms that were once the people Israel that God breathed life, new life!
Sometimes we find ourselves standing over the dry bones of what once was. Look around and we see nothing but death and destruction. We feel the pain and the sting of loss. We see the graves of hopes and our dreams, shattered and strewn around us. It seems as if our lives are filled with nothing but death, nothing but loneliness. The landscape of our lives is foreign, nothing is familiar. It is as if we woke up one day and found ourselves living lives that are unrecognizable. The fertile fields of all we once thought would be have been burned and salted and there is no going back. We are dead, our hopes are dead, and our dreams are dead. And even if that is an exaggeration of the circumstances it feels as if it is true.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a place like that of Israel, wonder where God could be when we are living in a place that seems so far from the hand of God. We look up to the sky and we cannot see God there. We look at the pain through which we are walking and it seems there is no way God could be in any of this. The loneliness we feel is so palpable that we know that God is not in it and it so solidly forms a wall around everything in our lives that surely there is no way God could penetrate it. We will live forever in this darkness. We will continue to exist in this place that seems to be beyond the reach of even the God who created all places. We are in Sheol, the Pit, where God is not, the land of the waking dead. Where we do nothing but exist, because as surely as we know anything, we know this; this that we are doing each day, is not living.
It is into the death that we know, into the destruction that we have seen, into the brokenness of the bones of our lives that God speaks this morning. As we stand over this valley in our lives, God comes to us this morning and says, “Can these bones live?” I am sure we want to say, “Yes, yes of course God.” But most of us are more like Ezekiel, most of us see the state of affairs our lives are in now and the most faith we can muster is, “Only you know God.” “I mean, if you say they can, I am sure they can,” while thinking to ourselves, “Dead is dead. Once a mirror has fallen to the floor and shattered there is no way it can be whole again. I don’t know how I can ever know peace, full healing, or wholeness again.”
But God speaks, over the brokenness in our lives, God speaks over our lost dreams, over our shattered hopes and our brokenness, over our loneliness, over the destruction, the pain and the loss and even the death and says, “Live!” And when the breath of God lost dreams they are found and made new. When God speaks over shattered hopes and brokenness they are made whole again. When the spirit of God fills our loneliness, it is filled and we are not alone. When the wind of God blows over the destruction, the pain, the loss and yes even the death in our lives, it is healed and life can truly be LIVED once again. What was dead can be alive. This is the message God gives to us today, in the places where we are, waiting.
I do want to point out something that sometimes we forget. It did not happen all at once. We like our miracles, our healing, our wholeness to come like our frozen meals, now. Pop it in the microwave, wait 30 seconds and it is done. We are so use getting the things we want immediately. We can have our money right now, anytime of the day or night, by going to a machine. Put in a card, and a four digit pin and money just appears. There are 24 hour McDonald’s, we can go to the drive thru (we don’t have to even get out of the car) and have our nuggets or hot fudge Sunday right now, even at 2am. Amazon is even working on a system of drones that can deliver packages to your door within hours of ordering, instead of the unendurably long two days we have to wait now (I still remember when you had to wait four to six weeks for something ordered out of a catalog – almost long enough to have forgotten you had ordered it).
We want our healing today, right now, this very instant. And sometimes it happens that way. But most of the time it happens little by little, first the bones come together, and then the muscles and sinews form and eventually flesh covers it all over and then finally the Spirit of God fills our lives once again. It takes a long time for us to find the fullness of life we once knew. Sometimes it is an imperceptibly slow process, where bit by bit, God takes the shattered pieces of our lives and one by one mends them, until finally we are whole once again. It takes a long time and it seems like the process will never be done. But it is happening, healing is occurring, our loneliness is being filled, we are being healed, we are being made whole again. God is working a miracle in our lives, even when it does not seem to be the case. Even when it takes too long (in our estimation) it is happening. God is making the bone lives. They can live they will live. We might not see it today. We might not be able to feel it tomorrow. It may not even be next week or next year, but one day we will wake up and the breath of God will fill us and we will be alive once again.
We are like Israel waiting for the messiah. He did not come the first year they were in exile. He did not come the last year they were in exile. Jesus did not even come the year they returned to the houses and their lands. And so they waited.
And today we continue to wait for the fullness of salvation, for the wholeness that will come from the redemption of all creation, which will only come when Christ comes again and all the earth is restored to its creation glory and we are made truly alive again.
No comments:
Post a Comment