“The Resurrection of Dead Dry Bones Reveals Yahweh’s Omnipotence”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord [Amen.]
“O God, O Lord of heav’n and earth,
Thy living finger never wrote
That life should be an aimless mote,
A deathward drift from futile birth.
Thy Word meant life triumphant hurled
In splendor through Thy broken world.
Since life awoke and life began,
Thou hast desired Thy life for man.”
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
834:1)
Old Testament
Reading........................................................ Ezekiel
37:1-14 (esp. 11-14)
11Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we
are clean cut off.’ 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the
Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O
my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13And you shall
know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your
graves, O my people. 14And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall
live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am
the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”
Prologue: Among the 13 divine attributes listed in our Synod
Catechism that “tell us what God is” appears “almighty, all-powerful
(omnipotent)”. (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. Copyright ©
1986, 1991 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Pages 105f.) Today’s
Old Testament Reading, which also serves as my sermon text, emphasizes that
reality about God, namely, that …
“The Resurrection of Dead Dry Bones Reveals Yahweh’s Omnipotence.”
Okay, right out of the chute we are told that …
I. Yahweh Asked An Attention-Grabbing Question. (1-3)
1The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of
the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones.
2And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the
surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3And he said to me,
“Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
In essence that deeply-probing question was Yahweh’s way of
causing Ezekiel to examine his approach to Yahweh. Would he consider the
question with his physical eyes of human reason, rationale, and
understanding or his spiritual eyes of God-given faith and divine
revelation? And, before we become too self-righteously critical of Ezekiel,
how would we frankly, truthfully, and honestly answer that question?
Many years later when Yahweh walked on this earth in the person of
Jesus He had a similar dialogue with Martha regarding His dear but dead
friend Lazarus as contained in today’s Gospel Reading, “Jesus said to her,
‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die,
yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never
die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; I believe that you
are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.’” (St John
11:25-27 ESV)
In the Apostles’ Creed we declare, “I believe in ... the
resurrection of the body;” in the Nicene Creed we confess, “I look for the
resurrection of the dead;” and in the Athanasian Creed we testify, “all men
shall rise again with their bodies.” Do we give more than a glancing
thought to those statements when they roll off our tongues and out of our
mouths or are we simply repeating what we’ve learned to say over the years?
Do we truly believe that we will rise back to life after dying?
Let’s remember at this point the emphasis of Lent, namely, that it’s
a time to review and rehearse repentance as we penitentially prepare to once
again formally celebrate our sinless Savior’s bodily return back to life
after having died a real sinner’s death. After all, His death was the
ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
All the blood-shedding sacrifices throughout the Old Testament years leading
up to Christ’s crucifixion death only covered the people’s sins … they didn’t
remove them. They testified to Yahweh’s promises going all the way back to
Adam and Eve that He would send the Messiah, whose “holy precious blood and
innocent suffering and death” would atone for—wash away—all the sins of all
the people of all time. His holy death destroyed the unholy death that
resulted from mankind’s disobedient rebellion against the holy God that
created us. So, Lent is a time to candidly recall the devastating reality
of our sinful nature and the never-ending list of sinful thoughts,
attitudes, words, and actions for which we deserve punishment in the
everlasting fires of hell ... but for which Jesus Christ suffered and died
on Calvary’s cross.
By the way, the particular sad condition of the Israelites at this
time was that they were exiled in Babylon some 600 years before the birth of
Jesus. Jeremiah, who like Ezekiel was a priest-turned-prophet, had strongly
sounded God’s warning to the Jews about their dangerous spiritual situation
... but they ignored his message. God then sent Ezekiel, a contemporary of
Jeremiah and Daniel, to repeat and emphasize His severe displeasure and
threat of punishment. As with all the Old Testament prophets, however, his
message contained not only the threat of destruction but also the promise of
restoration.
This graveyard that God showed Ezekiel in his vision contained
evidence of a battle fought long ago. There was no skin, no flesh, no
organs ... only sun-dried bones. Death is the result of sin. God had
warned Adam and Eve about death ... that if they disobeyed Him they would
die ... and they did ... and people have been doing so throughout the ages
... and we will ... all because of sin that damaged and disrupted God’s
perfect creation of life. So God asked Ezekiel a penetrating question about
the likelihood of life.
It was a rhetorical question of sorts ... one designed to get
Ezekiel’s absolute attention and make a very emphatic point to him. The
Creator of life was about to demonstrate His power over life ... and death!
“Can these bones live?” God asked Ezekiel. His answer was cautiously
guarded. “O Lord God, You know,” Ezekiel responded with faith that God has
the power to do whatever He wants to because nothing is impossible with God.
We know from Holy Scripture that He can do all things including miraculous
feats that boggle our imagination and minds ... things like create
everything out of nothing; make time stand still or more amazingly go
backward; cause a bush to burn without being consumed; change water into
wine; heal the lame; give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf;
communicate to us His divine reality through word, water, bread, and wine …
and the list could go on indefinitely. In fact, today’s Gospel Reading
reported that Jesus raised His good friend Lazarus back to life from death
thereby demonstrating His power over death and previewing His own
resurrection that would soon occur.
Well, this conversation between God and Ezekiel continued but with
a significantly different twist. Instead of giving more information …
II. Yahweh Gave a Divine Direction
and Promise. (4-10)
4Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry
bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones:
Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6And I will
lay sinews upon 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.” 7So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I
prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came
together, bone to its bone. 8And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on
them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there
was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath;
prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may
live.” 10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them,
and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
God’s words contained in God’s Holy Word are all about life. They
are about the Word made flesh—Jesus—Who gave His holy life into sin-caused
death so that we might have eternal life. They are about the holy life that
He lived so that His sacrificed life would be an acceptable ransom for us
whose lives are stained with sin. God’s challenging instruction to Ezekiel
to speak His all-powerful words that would restore life gave a preview of
healthy wholesome life that would be ... sinews, flesh, skin, and breath.
God’s mighty miracles always point us to God Himself. God’s
instruction here produced a miracle that pointed to Himself because it
testified to life ... and God Himself created life and is the master of it.
After the preliminary testimony of life the life-restoring miracle itself
gave clear evidence that God is “Yahweh,” Who not only made life but also
sustains life ... and can restore life that has ceased to live. For this
same Yahweh would someday lay down His own life and take it up again for us
sinful mortals so that by His grace through Spirit-given faith in Him we
might live forever with Him in the glorious mansions of heaven. Saint Paul
declared this message in today’s Epistle Reading, “But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of
righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells
in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:10-11 ESV)
Repentance is not only Lent’s emphasis but is also our ongoing
daily activity throughout the year. It’s largely about obedience and
disobedience. By the Holy Spirit’s power we obey God’s call to recognize,
grieve, confess, receive His forgiveness for, and strive to stop our
disobedience. Such repentance is based on and motivated by the fact that
God Himself is life as well as the giver and preserver of life. Apart from
Him there is no real life ... only a vague perception of such.
People often refer to birth as the miracle of life but it really
isn’t. Birth is God’s natural activity whereby He continues the human life
He began with Adam and Eve. The real miracle of life is what will occur
after death. God in His marvelous miraculous might will resurrect the life
that death temporarily snuffed out. The substance of life itself is the
breath of God itself, even as He breathed life itself into Adam and Eve, who
then became living beings. In like manner God gave the miracle of life to
the dry bones by clothing them with sinews, flesh, skin, ... and His breath!
In conclusion, therefore, declining health and strength, reduced
financial income, and destruction or loss of personal property and other
resources may seem utterly hopeless and cause us to doubt God’s presence and
trustworthiness. The Israelites experienced their own faith challenges as
they lingered in exile … captives of the Babylonians. They wondered whether
or not they would ever again experience the liberated life they had once
known.
Wrapped up in the restored life of the resurrected dry bones was
God’s promise to free His chosen people from captivity and return them to
their beloved land of Israel. Even as He regenerated those dead bones in
the uncovered graveyard, so also He would resurrect and liberate His
Israelite children from the heathen land of Babylon. In like manner, He
will resurrect us and all true believers in Jesus Christ to eternal glorious
life with Himself in heaven.
Death could not and did not defeat our Savior ... and it cannot
and will not defeat us! His personal resurrection from the dead is
proof-positive that “A. Christ is the Son of God; B. His doctrine is the
truth; C. God the Father accepted Christ’s sacrifice for the reconciliation
of the world; [and] D. all believers in Christ will rise to eternal life.”
(Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. Pages 139f.) That is, Lent
leads us to the crucifixion death of Christ and beyond His death to His
majestic resurrection. So it is that the Lent Gradual continues to echo in
our ears, minds, and hearts, “[O come, let us fix our eyes on] Jesus, the
founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of
the throne of God.” (Heb 12:2 ESV) It does so because …
“The Resurrection of Dead Dry Bones Reveals Yahweh’s Omnipotence.”
As it does so, let’s remember that …
I. Yahweh Asked An Attention-Grabbing Question. (1-3)—one that
certainly probes the depths of our faith as well, a faith given us by the
Holy Spirit and laced with comfort and reassurance by the words in today’s
Introit, “For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my
feet from stumbling. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints.” (Ps 116:8, 15 ESV)
At the same time, let’s never forget that …
II. Yahweh Gave a Divine Direction and Promise. (4-10)—and He
continues to give the same to us today as well. For that reason we
confidently pray the petition of today’s Collect, “mercifully look upon Your
people that we may be governed and preserved evermore in body and soul.”
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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