Ezekiel 37.1-14; Romans 8.6-11
Whatever else can be said about the Christian Faith, this much is clear, at least to me:
The heart of the Christian Faith is hope …
And hope means courage … the courage to face whatever - may come our way, however it shakes out for us …
Life can be downright miserable … things go south in a heartbeat … we screw up badly, behave in the worst of ways … friends desert us, colleagues betray us … our car breaks down.
We all know the downside of life … we’ve been there … maybe we’re there right now, we’ll be there again … it’s just the way it is.
The Bible knows full well the crummy side of life … if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.
And so it shall be, to the end of the age …
But this much can be said … this much has to be said … there is hope, a focused, profound, hope, that transcends all other hopes … there is goodness at work in the universe … there is grace, there is mercy, there is love … from death to life, from bondage to freedom, from a valley of dry, dry, bones, to a new day rising.
Ezekiel knows hard times … he’s been with the people, in the long hike to Babylon … a trail of tears.
Let’s be honest …
In the down side of life, we can lose our bearings … sadness overwhelms the soul … bitterness, resentment, about how things turn out, because sometimes, things turn out really crummy …
And it’s not even our doing … the shifting sands of time and culture can throw us to the side of the road and leave us stranded … economic powers, political shifts, far beyond our control … time and tide wait for no man.
I keep thinking about the folks in Syria and Turkey … 50,000 dead and counting … so much lost … so much gone … it’ll take years to rebuild those cities and towns …
The people in Ukraine - day in, day out, the threat of death … sorrow and fear at every turn of the corner …
Ezekiel’s people in Babylon, lost … forlorn … broken:
Psalm 137 says it well …
By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
The Psalm ends with some of the bitterest words every uttered by any human being, anywhere … a scream of rage, hurt, revenge - against the Babylonians, for what they’ve done …
Some read Psalm 137, and ask, “Why is this even in the Bible?”
This hideous outburst, dripping with bitterness … it’s in the Bible, because the Bible is all about the human journey, the human story, our story … hopes and setback, defeat and victory, finding a way through, and finding our way blocked, the good … the bad … and the ugly.
The Bible is thoroughly honest; the Bible doesn’t pull its punches, it’s doesn’t shy away from the wretched things of life …
And still, always and forever, the singular, beautiful, message of hope and courage … don’t be afraid, I am with you always, to the end … I will never leave you or forsake you … there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, neither in this life, or the life to come, neither trial nor travail, neither heartache nor loss …
With caution, with patience, and kindness, never scolding anyone for feeling bad … never wagging a finger at anyone who’s discouraged … or blame anyone, for being in the Valley of the Shadow of Death …
Preachers and priests can scold … but not so the Bible.
Not so the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ.
God walks with the wounded.
God rests with the weary.
God takes the hand of the lonely.
God waits for those who cannot go another step.
God is present within all the bleak and dreary corners of life.
On that day in Babylon, a vision: God takes Ezekiel to a valley, bleak and dreary, full of dry, dry, bones …
Can these bones live again? asks God.
What can Ezekiel say?
I imagine his face, a face drawn down by fatigue, a soul broken and bleeding …
With a shrug of the shoulders, Ezekiel mumbles, Only you know, LORD … only you know!
Is this a statement of faith?
Or resignation?
I’m not sure what it is … I suspect it’s a shred of faith, a remnant of former days … what was earlier formed in Ezekiel’s childhood, the liturgies of the Temple … the songs of Zion … at his mother’s knee, at his fathers’s side.
But now? … what’s left?
A shrug of the shoulders, a bit of a mumble, Only you know, LORD … only you know.
And God says, Let me show you what I can do.
And with that, suddenly, a noise … bones and sinews, flesh and blood, come into being …
Creation, all over again … when God, like a child playing with dirt, took a fistful and shaped it into a little figure.
God took that little figure and held it close to God’s face, and with a puff of breath, God breathed life into that little lump of dirt … and that day, God said,
I created a remarkable being of dirt and divinity …
for the dirt, mortal …
mortal to the core,
subject to all the infirmities and limits of flesh and bone …
but driven by divinity, by impossible dreams,
incredible hope,
infinite reach for the stars above
and the courts of heaven beyond …
this creature of dirt and divinity
will carry great burdens,
experience untold joys and great pleasure,
and will learn how to weep …
this creature of dirt and divinity will do horrible things, and great things …
this creature of dirt and divinity will harm and hurt … and heal and help …
it will pray, it will curse;
it will build, it will destroy;
it will celebrate the truth, and tell big lies …
it will be great, it will be terrible … it will be beautiful, it will be frightening;
it will be a human being, a creature of dirt and divinity.
Can the bones, the dry, dry, bones, live again?
It’s the question of the ages …
Will Syria and Turkey rebuild?
Will the war in Ukraine come to an end?
Will our sadness find a way through?
Will our dreams come true?
It may take years … it may take ages … maybe only in eternity …
It’s all held together … in Christ our LORD.
the dirt and the divinity …
the visible and the invisible …
all of time, all of eternity …
the smallest elements of creation, and the distant of stars …
the next moment, and billions and billions and billions of light years …
As I was putting all of this together … thinking, reading, writing … pondering the stories of Lent, thinking about all of you … my own life, my family, my stories …
This came to mind:
You can do it.
I believe in you.
You have the ability to make your world.
You will recover.
You will find your way.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In the name of the Mother, the Daughter, and their Divine Presence.
In the name of all that’s good and beautiful and true.
In the name of every child’s hope, every child’s dream, every child’s love …
Yes, Yes, and Yes!
Hallelujah and Amen!
1 comment:
Thank you, for your sermon of Hope! A blessing to have met and shared and created something for the future!
Thank you for these words, this morning.
I wasn't sure how to find your live streaming for this morning.
Blessings,
Alice
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