Scripture/Sermon of the Day. March 26, 2023
Ezekiel 37:1-14
The Valley of Dry Bones
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me
out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was
full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the
valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these
bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the
Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6
I will lay sinews on 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.”
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I
prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together,
bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come
upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 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.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the
breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the
whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost;
we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the
Lord God: I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my
people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know
that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O
my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will
place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken
and will act, says the Lord.”
Reflection/Sermon:
I. The prophet Ezekiel preached this message to the
people of Israel when they were living in Babylon. The nation of Israel had been
defeated by the Babylonians and the Israelites were forced to leave Israel and
settle in the foreign land of Babylon. People had lost hope that they would ever
see their homes again. When people lose hope, when they believe there is nothing
worthwhile to live for and life becomes hard to endure. That’s why people said:
“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” In
other words, the people were alive, technically — their hearts beat, they could
breathe — but they didn’t have anything to live for. They had become hopeless —
they were alive, but they had stopped living.
II. Something in our culture today shows that the
experience of living but not feeling alive is widespread — the growing rates of
suicide and drug addiction — and overdoses — but especially the hundreds — maybe
thousands — of TV shows and movies about ZOMBIES.
NUMBER 1 for 2023 is Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas
where there’s a zombie outbreak and Las Vegas becomes a grotesque wasteland of
flesh-eating monsters that overrun the population.
NUMBER 2 is The Last of Us, where the world is changed
forever by the outbreak of a virus that brings about the zombie apocalypse.
NUMBER 3 is Tales of the Walking Dead — which explores
a world ravaged by zombies.
III. Why so much interest in Zombies? I think it’s
because people struggle with this same issue, thousands of years old, that
Ezekiel wrote about in the fifth century BC — where people just exist but are
not really alive.
The miracle of the Valley of Dry Bones is not that God
made millions of bones become living beings again — because that would be just
another zombie story.
The people didn’t become human beings ALIVE until God
breathed God’s spirit in them.
IV. And that’s the difference between the story of
Noah and the story of Abraham. And the reason when we read the Bible and talk
about God’s salvation — we don’t start with Adam and Eve — or Noah. The story of
God’s salvation of the human race begins with Abraham. Because Noah had no
purpose in life except to repopulate the world. Which any rodent could also
accomplish.
But God told Abraham that, yes, he would have many
descendants but — and here is what distinguishes his story from all the others
in Genesis — God said: YOU WILL BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS.
And that is the blessing passed down to us through
Jesus. “Love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus said. Love is the blessing
of Jesus we have been called to share with others.
Love is what makes the difference between just living,
like any other zombie, and being ALIVE!