Preaching to Dry Bones

                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

Jesu Juva

Ezekiel37:1-14                                                       

 May 23, 2021

The Day of Pentecost                        

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          As most of you probably know, there’s a new Target store being built just a few blocks from here.  And, at least in this neighborhood, there are some strong opinions about that project.  What we know for sure is that when the work is done, there will be a grand opening.  Perhaps a ribbon-cutting ceremony, some live music, maybe some free food and red balloons.  Who knows?  It’s hard to get too excited.  After all, Target stores have been around for a long time.

          So it is with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.  The wind, the tongues of fire, the miracle of languages—these were all the ingredients of the Church’s great grand opening—the balloons and fireworks that marked the beginning of the end times—a time of grace and repentance organized and orchestrated by the Lord and Giver of life.  Of course, the Holy Spirit had already been at work in the world since before creation.  But now, a Pentecost grand opening to preach Christ crucified and risen, for the salvation of all who believe.

          Pentecost is all about preaching.  The gospel was miraculously preached in a multitude of languages.  Most of Acts chapter two is a sermon preached by Peter—a sermon by which the Holy Spirit converted and baptized more than three thousand people.  As preaching goes, you can’t hope for results much better than that. 

          Yet an even more miraculous sermon is preached in today’s Old Testament reading by the prophet Ezekiel.  On the Day of Pentecost Peter preached to thousands of faithful Jews who were already catechized in the teachings of the Old Testament—who were already looking for the Messiah.  But Ezekiel preached to thousands of dead, dry, dusty old bones—long disassociated from their rightful owners: tibias and femurs and clavicles and vertebrae and skulls.  I think I’ve got it rough preaching to you some days; Ezekiel couldn’t even get an “amen” from his congregation of sun-bleached bones.

          Those dry bones corresponded to all the people of God in Ezekiel’s day.  Their homes, their temple, their nation—it had all been reduced to rubble.  And now they were exiled, living in a Babylonian graveyard from which they thought they would never rise again.  They were as good as dead—as dead as dry, dusty bones.

          Son of Man, can these bones live?  That’s a great question for Pentecost—the Sunday of the Holy Spirit, when God breathed life and faith into His little church.  Can these bones live?  What an absurd question.  Bones indicate the absolute absence of life, not the possibility of life.  But the Lord follows up that absurd question with an even more ridiculous command:  Prophesy over these bones, and preach to them, O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord!  Seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?  Preaching to the dead.  It makes much more sense to preach to the living—especially to the wealthy, influential, popular and powerful living.  But when the Lord tells you to preach—and gives you the very words to preach—you preach.

          Astonishingly, those dry, dusty bones hear and obey.  They come together again, bone to bone—skittering skeletons clicking together like nobody’s business.  And then, wonder of wonders, tendons, muscle and flesh cover those bones.  That’s the power of God’s Word at work.  Don’t underestimate the Word.  Don’t ignore the Word.  By the Word of God all things were created.  By the Word all things hold together.  Bodies long dead are reassembled and reconstituted—How?  Why?  Because they heard the Word of the Lord.  Because they were preached to.  It’s yet another good reason to come to the Divine Service—even though some Sunday mornings you may feel dead tired.  You may feel dead and defeated in your sin and shame—dead in your debauchery—dead in your deceit and disobedience—dead in your depression and despair—But this is where the dead are gathered to hear the Word of the Lord and live! 

          O, and don’t forget the Spirit.  For up to this point the bones had only been transformed into bodies.  Bodies are good; but those bodies had no breath in them.  In the Hebrew language there is one word that means “breath” and “wind” and “spirit.”  That word is ru-ah.  And sometimes, when you’re translating the Old Testament, and the word ru-ah comes along, it’s a bit of a toss-up as to whether it means breath or wind or spirit.  That word—ru-ah—appears three times in one verse of today’s text:  Thus says the Lord God:  Come from the four (1)winds, O (2)Spirit, and (3)breathe on these slain, that they may live.  And by that Spirit, breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army—not zombies, not the walking dead, but living, breathing, resurrected people.

          It was a resurrection on a grand scale—a resurrection accomplished by the Word of God together with the Spirit of God.  (By the way, those two always go together—Word and Spirit.)  It was a resurrection that prophetically pointed ahead to the resurrection of Jesus.  The resurrection of Jesus was really the high point of Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost.  Peter preached that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried—that the corpse of the Christ had not been reduced to dry bones, but was raised and resurrected—that God did not abandon Jesus to the grave—that His body did not see decay.  God raised Jesus from the dead, and He will do the same with you.  That’s what Peter preached, and three thousand believed it that day, and were saved.  Three thousand believed, were baptized, received the Holy Spirit, and were made alive by the Word of God, preached and proclaimed to them.

          You and I need those Words of God preached to us.  That’s why you are where you are right now.  We poor sinners need to be shaken and rattled to the core.  We may not be dead bones; but we have deadening sins to deal with—deadening sins that lead us and lull us to live like zombies—so selfish and driven solely by our urges and impulses.  We need to have our bones rattled and shaken by the Law of God.  The skeletons in our closets need to be confessed and taken away.  That Law of God shows us just how dead we are to the needs of those around us—dead to the hurt and harm that we cause others—dead in sinful patterns that need to be killed and crushed to dust—dead in lust and greed and idolatry and drunkenness and envy and anger.  Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.

          Your sin-deadened bones can live—and do live—but not by your doing.  Dead bones can’t do a thing for themselves.  But the Word of God together with the Spirit of God can transform dead bones into living bodies.  In the creed we confess that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life.  Wherever the Word of God is preached, there the Holy Spirit is breathing God’s life (and God’s forgiveness) into those who hear.  The Holy Spirit works through preaching—calling, gathering, enlightening, making holy, kindling faith, forgiving sin, bearing fruit—and all of this IN YOU.

          Can these bones live?  Can these sinful bones live?  In Christ you can live.  In Christ you DO live.  He was crucified on a hill called “The Place of the Skull,” and on His own skull was placed a crown of thorns.  He bowed His sacred head in death to pay for your offenses, your sins, your iniquities—all the things that pull you down to the grave and make you more dead than alive.  Jesus bowed His head and gave up His Spirit as your sacred substitute.  Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

          In your baptism the Word of God and the Spirit of God had their way with you.  You were dead in trespasses and sins; but now you are alive through faith in Jesus Christ.  On the last day the Holy Spirit will raise you and all the dead, and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ.  This is most certainly true, no matter how outlandish it may sound.  Can these bones of yours live?  Yes.  Yes, they can.  They will live forever because Jesus Himself lives forever.  His Word and His Spirit are having their way with you.  Because you have been preached to.  Happy Pentecost. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.