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!