Death in Reverse
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Ezekiel 37.1-14
Death in Reverse
Week #17
 02.01.2015 – First UMC St. Cloud
Note from Pastor Mike: I want to encourage our church family to look
deeper into what God speaks to us through the Message.
Here at First United Methodist Church of Saint Cloud we believe that
God speaks to us through the Message. One way for all of us to hear
from God more clearly is to read the Scripture verses and the
Message again during the week.
I would really like to hear your comments and how God is challenging
you through the worship service and the Message. It would be great
to hear your discussion ideas. Please feel free to send me your
discussion points.
Your friend on the journey,
Pastor Mike
Contact Pastor Mike at:
 Pastor.Mike.FUMC@gmail.com
OR
First UMC St. Cloud 1000 Ohio Avenue Saint Cloud, FL 34769
(NIV) Ezekiel 37.1-14 – 1The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out
by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the
floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can
these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
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4 Then
he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones,
hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I
will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to
you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in
you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
7 So
I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a
noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked,
and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was
no breath in them.
9 Then
he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to
it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and
breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he
commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on
their feet—a vast army.
11 Then
he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They
say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore
prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I
am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back
to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I
open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and
you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the
LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”
Introduction: Put to Rights
1. A world gone mad which God sets out to put-to-rights.
A. All Hope Perish
Our text this morning from the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37.1-14) first spoken to the
people of Israel, who have seen all hope perish as they are violently conquered
and sent into exile.
1. Our text begins, Ezekiel 37.1-2 – 1The hand of the LORD was on me, and he
brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley.
The "hand of the Lord", like last week's "arm of the Lord", speaks of God's
power to act in our lives and history. Here, it seems that the Spirit of God gives
the prophet Ezekiel a vision where he is standing in the middle of a valley it
was full of bones. 2 He [God] led me back and forth among them, and I saw a
great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
Imagine standing in the middle of an immense valley, in silence. As you walk
back and forth, bleached white bones cover the whole valley floor in
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tattered heaps as far as your eye can see. Very dry bones, even the marrow
dried out from their very core. It appears to be the scene of a battle or a
slaughter, these bones are not here by accident or natural causes. Death.
2. Then in this valley of death in which God has Ezekiel wandering, God asks,
Ezekiel 37.3 – 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel's
responds, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” This may be a bold agreement
that God could bring life or a bleak resignation that only God knows.
Whatever the case, Ezekiel holds tightly to the possibility that God, and God
alone, can bring life from death.
3. This vision would have seemed more reality than dream to the first hearers.
Ezekiel's vision is given for a people who have lost heart, who suffered death,
both spiritually and physically, who now live in exile either in Babylon or in
Egypt. These people of Israel have seen Jerusalem besieged and laid to
waste. Their Temple, God's Temple, destroyed by the Babylonian empire.
They have witnessed not only their soldiers but also women and children
slaughtered. Most of those left alive marched off in chains into exile. This
valley of bones, though for Ezekiel only a vision, spoke absolutely true about
their lives. Those whose bones do not lie dried in the "valley" feel they are
perishing none the less, crying out, Ezekiel 37.11b – 11 ....‘Our bones are dried
up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ "Our hope is gone," can also be
translated, "Our hope is perished." Death even for the living.
B. All Around
For you and me, for our world, Ezekiel's vision speaks the same absolute truth
about our condition all around us.
1. Now, these words may not speak to most of our physical conditions here in
our great country. Yet, as Christians, we are citizens of God's Kingdom that
includes the whole world. This past week marked the 70th anniversary of the
liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, which epitomized,
(symbolized) the genocide of the Jews. Bones pilled high in places like
Dachau or literally scattered across the valley at places like Babi Yar in Kiev,
Russia.
a. In many of our lifetime, again in literal valley of bones that we say in the
Killing Fields of Pol Pot's Cambodia in the 1970's, the genocides in BosniaHerzegovina and Rwanda in the 1990's. Even as we worship this morning,
the Asaid regime in Syria is killing thousands of Syrian men and women
and children. Valley of bones.
2. This violence against others is the end of the road of sin and evil. For the
people of Israel, it was their sin of not worshiping only God that made them
vulnerable to the sin of the Babylonian use of violence to build an empire. Sin
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and evil continues to lead individual human beings, groups and nations of all
religions and from all corners of the globe toward violence against others.
3. On a much smaller scale, yet still troubling, is our own struggles with sin and
evil and violence. Some of us are the perpetrators. Our actions hurt others.
Others are the ones who lives are hurt because of the sin of others. Most of us
suffer in some way as a consequence of our own sin. Like the people of Israel,
we look at human history, our daily news and our own lives, crying out, Our
bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off. We feel like dry
bones strew across the valley. Yet, God still asks our world and you and me,
“human being, can these bones live?”
C. Breath
Into these dry bones God breathes the breath of God's Holy Spirit.
1. God tells Ezekiel to prophesy. God tells Ezekiel to tell these dried bones what
God will do. Ezekiel 37.4-6 – 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones
and say to them.... 5 .... 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come
upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come
to life...." Ezekiel takes up his authority as God's prophet, Ezekiel 37.7-8 – 7 So I
prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a
noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I
looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them,
but there was no breath in them.
2. Then, in what I see as a positive word about the intricate and vital
connection between our bodies and our spirit, God gives new life to the
once dried bones. Ezekiel 37.9-10 – 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the
breath..... 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered
them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. There is a
repetition of the Hebrew word ruach (ַ‫ )רּוח‬meaning "breath", "breathe",
"wind" and "spirit". This new "wind" or "spirit" that blows is not their own, but
God's own Spirit. Not their own life but the life-of-God. This is death and
decay but this time in reverse! This is a new creation out of the sin and evil
and violence and ultimately the death of the old creation.
3. I am reading through the Gospel of John., I read Jesus' words in (NRSV) John
5.25-29 – 12Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the
works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am
going to the Father. 13I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the
Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If in my name you ask me for anything, I
will do it. 15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask
the Father, and he will give you another Advocate [God the Holy Spirit], to be
with you for ever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees him nor knows him.
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You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18 ‘I will not
leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no
longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that
day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you [this is
the abundant and eternal life of God].
4. Ezekiel's prophecy comes true in Jesus. The Spirit of God, the breath of God,
comes into the lives of believers. Because of the life and death and
resurrection of Jesus the Christ, because Jesus has returned to heaven - to
God's space - we now have God the Holy Spirit which bring us, enfolds us, in
the abundant and eternal life-of-God. Our dry bones have come to life. Not
disembodied lives, but the life-of-God right now in our bodies.
5. This is so important. God's Holy Spirit gives us a new life, a new life to be lived
in this life. A new life that will bring not only our dry bones to life but the dry
bones of others. The vision was not of spirits flying away but of bodies and
spirits re-created to now live for God in the land!
D. Breathe
So, now back to the end of Ezekiel's vision, in Ezekiel 37.11-14, where you and I
find our part in all this, to breathe of new life into the dry bones of humanity.
1. Now, we soon discover in verse Ezekiel 37.11-14 – 11 Then he said to me: “Son
of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried
up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ To which God speaks, 12 ....My
people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will
bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I
am the LORD.... 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you
in your own land....’” Not just the Southern tribe of Judea and the City of
Jerusalem but also the northern tribes of the Kingdom of Israel. ALL 12 TRIBES!
This though, never occurred in any meaningful way. In all likely hood, this is an
eschatological (that is end of time) hope.
2. Yet, Jesus calls together 12 disciples, he sends the Holy Spirit into their lives,
sending them out into the world to bring together the church. This is the New
Israel - the Church. Ezekiel's prophecy (on this one level - who knows about
the future) comes true on the church. Into this world where dry bones
continue to fill the valleys of the world both in a very real sense physical way
and in an equally tangible spiritual sense God "breathes" God's Holy "Breath"
bringing dead bones to life. And these dry bones, bone without marrow,
bones strew across the valleys, that are now empowered by God's Spirit is the
church - one part of this being you and I gathered here at First United
Methodist Church. Life where there was once death.
3. Recall God's command to Ezekiel? Though it God and God alone who will
breathe new life into the dry bones, it is Ezekiel who will "prophecy" or speak
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God's life giving words to the dry bones, to the people of Israel who need to
know that even in their despair, there is God's hope of new life. So, the
church is the New Israel (not to negate or lessen the current nation of Israel)
and God has commanded us to participate with Jesus to breathe new life,
new creation into our world. The church like Ezekiel must speak prophetic
words.
4. I think there are many places where we speak prophetic words to our world.
N.T. Wright, a theologian and leader in the Church of England, believes
Christians need to speak prophetically to wealthy nations to forgive much of
the debt poorer nations in places like African own then, debt that is often
strangling their abilities to have a chance at vital economies. As much as
Christians are concerned about right sexuality, I believe we should speak
prophetically to the pornography industry that is not only degrading God's
gift of sex but literally destroying the minds and souls and families of millions of
people.
5. This is not at the expense of telling people about Jesus. This is a vital aspect of
telling people about Jesus. The life and death and resurrection of Jesus has
transformed and is transforming our world. These are not add-ons to the
gospel. We speak prophetically because we are participant with Jesus in the
transformation of the world. We tell people about Jesus because Jesus is the
only one who can transform our world.
“Action Point” – Engage your family in giving up something to save money for
the "Imagine No Malaria" campaign. (Offering on Easter Sunday)