Ezekiel
37:1-14
Sunday
of Pentecost
A
blessed Pentecost Sunday to you. Today is an important day in the
church calendar, perhaps the third most important. After Easter
(including Holy Week), and Christmas, the Sunday of Pentecost is one
of the chief festivals we observe each year.
Some
have said that Good Friday and Easter, as a unit, especially
correspond to the work of the Son, Jesus Christ. And that Christmas
corresponds to the work of the Father, who sent his Son into the
flesh. But Pentecost is certainly the day in which we highlight the
work of the Holy Spirit.
It
was on the first Christian Pentecost that the Spirit was poured out
on the believers, empowering them to speak the Gospel in languages
they never learned. And so it is also considered the birthday of the
Christian Church, a major turning point in the New Testament, and in
God's plan for his people.
We
learn from God's Word that the Holy Spirit is a person, like the
Father and Son, of the Godhead. He is associated with the
forgiveness of sins, the creation of faith, and the calling and
gathering of the church. He is sent by the Father and the Son as a
helper, comforter, and to bring light or understanding. He is, in a
way, mysterious, like the wind – you can't see him but you can see
his working. But the Spirit's work is not apart from the Word and
Sacraments. He doesn't simply work in us, out of the blue, apart
from these promised means of grace.
And
as we get toward our text from Ezekiel, we can see one more aspect of
the Spirit's work: He is the Lord and Giver of Life, as we confess
in the Nicene Creed. Yes, the word, “Spirit” means wind, or
breath – and the same Spirit who breathed into Adam's nostrils the
breath of life, the same Spirit who will breathe into our flesh the
breath of eternal life on the last day, is the same Spirit here
pictured in Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones.
Take
a look at that valley with Ezekiel. A vast army of dead, very dead
people. Not freshly slain soldiers, among whom you might find some
living but injured survivors. No they are quite dead. Not merely
dead, but really most sincerely dead. Dead and decayed, just bones
left, and dry ones at that. They are not even close to alive.
Kind
of like you, in your sins. In fact, just like you, in your sins.
Sometimes visions like this paint an even truer picture of reality
than our eyes do. Just like the Israelites of Ezekiel's day were a
hopeless and defeated nation with no life left in them, exiled to
Babylon, powerless, hopeless, as good as dead. So are you, and so is
every sinner, who may look alive but is very much dead in sin.
That
valley of dry bones is the human condition apart from God. Just as
dead and hopeless. Just as far from life and breath as anything.
Might as well be a rock or some dirt. Your everyday experience tells
you you're alive and just fine. But God's word shows the true
reality. Sin brings death. It clings to us. It infects every part
of us. We are dead men and women walking. Because we are sinners
who sin daily and sin much. And no matter how hard the skeleton
tries, it can't come to life. No matter how hard, you, the sinner,
try, you can't come to life. What we need is a miracle. A divine
intervention.
And
God is in the business of doing just that. From death he brings
life. From the cross, first and foremost. There in the hopeless,
helpless, death of Jesus on the cross, he brings help and hope and
life to all people. There in the valley of the shadow of death,
Jesus dies to bring the light that chases away death forever. And as
his dead flesh would rise to life again, so does he bring life to
dead sinners who die in him.
Ezekiel's
vision wasn't without hope, because he had God's word. The prophet
spoke, by God's command and promise, to the wind, that is, the
Spirit. Who came and brought life to those lifeless bones. Just as
the pastor speaks the word of God to lifeless sinners, and the Spirit
works through that word to bring life to you again. The valley of
dry bones is a vision of how God works in all times and places,
bringing life to the dead, through word and spirit, because of the
life from the dead won by his Son at the cross.
As
a pastor, I could look out on you, the people in my care, and see a
pile of bones – sinners who are hopeless and struggling with all
their own faults and failings, grieved by the sorrows of living in a
world where death reigns. You tell me your troubles, and I listen,
but I usually can't do anything much about it. It's like Ezekiel
looking at a femur and a skull. The troubles can be so much. And I
am just a man.
But
I have one thing for you, and it is enough. Not my word, but his.
Now hear this, you dried up and dried out dead people: Jesus Christ
has died and Jesus Christ lives and Jesus Christ promises you new
life. So hear the Gospel, now, and live! Hear the life-giving word
of the Spirit, who creates life where there was only death. Hear the
life-renewing hope and the sin-forgiving declaration. You are not
dead. You are not lost. You are forgiven. You are in Christ, and
Christ is alive. So, too, do you live through him!
You
are baptized. There you first rose from the death of sin to new life
in Christ. And one day your flesh will die, only to rise again
because of the promise of Christ. The fanciful picture of dry bones
coming back together, and breathing the breath of life again – is
not so fanciful compared to the promise of the last day. That at the
trumpet call of God the dead in Christ will rise and meet him face to
face, in a glorified body, and see him as he is, being like him.
This is our hope. This is our destiny.
Son
of man, can these bones live? Yes. Can Christ conquer death and
live? Yes. Can he, does he, promise the same for you? Yes. So
believe it, and live in him always. Amen.
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