December 5, 2021
Advent 2
Ezekiel 37:1-14

Today, we … and the prophet Ezekiel … are faced with a vision of hopeless resignation.

Ezekiel writes from exile around the same time that Jeremiah is prophesizing in Jerusalem.

But where Jeremiah’s message was for those in exile, Ezekiel’s message is for the people of both conquered kingdoms.

Ezekiel is among the prophets and leaders who had been carried off by the Babylonians.

As he waits in exile, Ezekiel has a vision.

God comes to him and carries him to a valley that is filled with human bones … roughly 600,000 in all.

The bones have been there for awhile … the skin and muscle have been picked off or have decomposed and become part of the valley’s floor. The bones have been there so long that they are very dry and fragile.

It is a desolate sight that brings images of modern-day mass unmarked graves to mind.

As they are walking among the bones, God asks Ezekiel the big question:

“Can these bones live?”

The Babylonians have destroyed Jerusalem … the city and the temple are gone … razed to the ground.

In such a world, Ezekiel offers his message to a scattered and divided people who have lost everything. The centre of the Identity … of their faith … is gone. Their sense of community has been shattered. They are disconnected from one another. They feel spent … dead.

 “Can these bones live?”

The question must have hung in the heavy air as Ezekiel pondered an answer.

“Can these bones live?”

“ Yes,” would have been the easy way out for the prophet, but he told God that he didn’t know … only God knows if the bones that dominate the landscape could see life once again.

Ezekiel is waiting for God to act … to see if God will open a future to the people or just leave them to languish and lament and pass into memory.

Ezekiel … and the other exiles … had been waiting to see if God was going to save Jerusalem from being destroyed and … after the city fell … they were left wondering if God had abandoned them.

The exiles … in their disconnectedness … their uncertainty … in their suffering … are feeling diminished … all their energy has been expended by the uncertainty in their lives.

Ezekiel tells God that the people lament, “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, we are cut off completely.”

The people feel forgotten by God … the promise of life is seemingly gone. The faith community that was their’s has been forever changed.

But God tells Ezekiel that new life will be breathed into the bones … into the people … and eventually they will return home.

There is cause for hope.

This passage from Ezekiel has become linked to the resurrection story in the gospels because of the renewed life that comes to these dead bones.

Theologian Craig Koester says that “resurrection is what hope looks like.”

… “resurrection is what hope looks like.”

Today’s passage speaks to those who have suffered a significant loss in their life … and in the twilight of Advent, these losses can be more acutely felt … the pain can feel fresh again … grief and sorrow can feel overwhelming.

This can be the pain over a personal loss or the communal sense of loss that follows a tragedy or a crisis … it can also follow the pandemic or a conflict in congregational life.

It can make our bones feel dry and brittle … and it can leave us to wonder if these bones can live.

But through it all God is present and God’s promise remains with us, as well.

It’s the second Sunday in Advent.

Here … in the twilight that marks the season … we are invited to consider the dry bones within us and around us … how life can be breathed into these bones so they too can become a means of renewal for others … how can we refresh these bones?

Today, God tells Ezekiel that the breath … the Spirit … will enter him and then the people are to listen as Ezekiel shares God’s word with them … and the word bring them back … revitalize them.

The word will serve as the connecting tissue between the bones … it will put muscle on the bones … covering it all with skin … animating them … bringing the bones … the people … to life … and through them … new life to the world.

The people will lead Spirit-filled lives in exile and God will be with them there.

God’s words brought hope to the displaced people … to people waiting for justice to appear once again … to people who cannot go back to their old way of life.

Perhaps, as we wait for the light to appear in the life of the world and breathe life into people’s hearts … as we prepare our hearts in anticipation … we can be a bit like Ezekiel … and walk among the dryness … the emptiness … of the world … seeking those who are disconnected and whose faith feels dead … whose bones feel very dry … and allow the Spirit to work through us to breathe life into those bones and their lives.

To let them know, that … in the uncertain twilight … in their exile … God is ever-present with us and that there is renewed life in God’s promise.

AMEN