Can these bones live?

Are we having fun yet? We are all – and when I say all, I mean all of us around the world – caught up in this COVID-19 pandemic.  What the virus may do, how our precautions, closures and cancellations may affect the rate of the spread - the answer to each of these questions is very much unknown. What all of that may mean for our economy, including the government’s stimulus and its effect on our national debt, and how other countries will be affected, and on and on – we just don’t know.  No one does. If you want to ruin your day, spend it watching nonstop speculation.

Closer to home, I know of at least one member of our church who was tested this week.  The results are not yet in but so far so good. I spoke at length with an ICU nurse at Winter Haven Hospital. She said COVID-19 has not been a problem yet, but they are gearing up for an expected wave in the next week or two. This morning I learned that Tish Kelly, the wife of John Kelly who is rector of St. George in The Villages, has tested positive for COVID -19. Please pray for her.

All of this brings us to consider what we really need, what is truly important. Whether or not we ourselves are at risk, all of us have people we love dearly who are. And all of us have concern for our community, our nation and our world.

These are times where questions of life and death touch every surface. It has our attention in a way that we should be giving careful consideration always. We must all face death and the question that cries out when we do is the very same one that God asks Ezekiel.  “Can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3)

It creates a rather wild scene! It’s like the end scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in reverse. God does indeed bring flesh, sinews and life to those dry bones. There are two points we should note here: First, that just as in Genesis and really throughout the whole Bible, God creates through speech. Second, that God speaks through people. God didn’t have Ezekiel watch him bring life to the bones, he showed Ezekiel and us that he can and will work through us when we follow through with his word.

We can and should always have an abiding acknowledgement of our own mortality. There will always be viruses.  There will always be diseases and accidents. There will always be death. Our bones will dry up. We have every invitation to see that and, were we to stop there, all hope would be lost.

But Ezekiel gives the right answer, “You know.” God does know. God says he will open our graves and bring us up. He will put His spirit in us and we shall live. He says he has spoken and he will act.

It is with that in mind that we join Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb. As we saw last week in the story of Jesus healing the man blind from birth, this passage, the 11th chapter of John’s Gospel, is like a precious gem. The closer we look at it, the more angles we use, the more facets we find and its beauty is limitless. It is a story of ultimate healing. It is a demonstration of Jesus’ authority. It is a foreshadowing of his own death and resurrection. It is a lesson in trusting Jesus even when we don’t understand why things are happening as they are. We see when Jesus wept how God understands and empathizes with our grief and sorrow. He knows it. He shares it.

This story is only in John’s Gospel. I’m convinced that John shared it because, having Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels circulating, he chose to fill in important pieces that were missing. This story fits very neatly with them, especially Luke’s Gospel. And it very clearly illustrates why very soon afterwards the crowds welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday with great celebration. He had just raised a dead man. That got the crowd’s attention and it caused the leaders to craft their plot to kill him.

We are in John’s Gospel precisely where we are in the liturgical calendar.  We continue next Sunday with the triumphal entry in to Jerusalem, and that is the very next chapter in John’s Gospel, then comes the foot washing, last supper, and his crucifixion.

All of that is important.  But, as we noted last week with that blind man, the key to understanding this passage is first to remember that when Jesus says, “Lazarus come out!” he is talking to you. We must put ourselves in the place of Lazarus, in the tomb, in death, and hear the voice of life. You come out! You must be unbound and set free!

The suffering of Lazarus, Martha, Mary and their friends is quite real. Lazarus was sick, terribly sick. As he suffered and eventually died, his sisters suffered with him. This is the high cost of love – we care for each other and when we suffer such a loss, it hurts proportionally with the depth of our love. We mustn’t paper over this because it has a happy ending.

This is life and death.

Where is the true joy in Ezekiel? It is in God’s promise to raise new life from those dried bones.

Where is the true joy in Romans? “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.” Yay!

Where is the true joy in this Gospel? That Lazarus gained another 30, 40, 50, 60 years of life on this earth before he died? That’s good – but the true joy is the eternal promise.

Shall we consign ourselves to the Valley of the Dry Bones? Shall we consign ourselves to our bodies of sin and death? Shall we make our life’s work primarily a matter of tending to all our physical and material needs knowing rationally that we cannot avoid those dry bones, to dust we shall return? No. God speaks new life through Jesus. He speaks it for all eternity, which includes today. God speaks new life through us. When we listen to Him, we have very important things to say that can change everything.

Are we willing to put this at the forefront of our own lives, not just in how we think about our health and our finances?  What do you fear? COVID-19? Or are you just angry at the whole thing? And, oh by the way, everything else is still going on. People have other illnesses, other problems, none of that stops. Are we willing in the face of all the fear and disruption all around us to tell the world, “He told me and I’m telling you, Come out!” Trust that he has us and all we hold dear, forever.

AMEN