Fifth Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

March 13, 2005

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

Rev. Gayle M. Highness

Out of Breath

In two weeks it will be Easter Sunday, and we will be here together, again, remembering the resurrection of Christ from the dead. But in between, we will remember his suffering and death. Our readings for this morning point us in the direction of the cross and the empty grave. All three readings paint for us images of death being transformed into life.

The Old Testament reading describes the vision of the prophet Ezekiel. It was spoken to the hopeless remnant of Israel exiled far from home in Babylon. In his vision, Ezekiel saw a valley full of bones – human bones – everywhere – like the dead left behind on a great battlefield.

“There were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry,” Ezekiel recalled. The Lord said to him, “Prophesy to these bones.” In other words, speak a Word of the Lord to the bones, telling them that the Lord will cause breath to enter them and they shall become covered with muscle and flesh and skin and shall live.

And so Ezekiel spoke the Word and the Word did what it said – it put muscle and flesh and skin on the dry bones. But at first there was no breath in them. So again, Ezekiel prophesied, at the Lord’s command, this time to the breath and, again, the Word did what the Word said. It brought the breath of life into the flesh-covered bones. “And they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”

The Lord explained the vision to Ezekiel – that the bones were the whole house of Israel and that God would restore His people. God would seek them out, cleanse them from their sin, put his spirit within them, give them new hearts, heal them and feed them and care for them like a shepherd cares for sheep.

God would do all this, not because of anything the people did to win God’s favor, but because God is a God of life and love, and God will have God’s way. “Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves,” says the Lord. “Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Shift, now, to John’s gospel and the story of Lazarus, the friend whom Jesus loved – the friend who had been in the tomb for four days by the time Jesus got there. Listen to Jesus’ conversation with Martha, the grieving sister of Lazarus. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” she said, revealing the hope she had carried in her heart, which now was dead and entombed with her brother.

“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her. But Martha did not get the full meaning. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “I AM the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the World.”

But when Jesus told the onlookers to take away the stone blocking Lazarus’ tomb, Martha was still aware only of death and the stench of a decaying body, not the promise of life. Jesus, on the other hand, was aware of the glory of God, the Father, which was about to be revealed.

“Lazarus, come out!” Jesus cried in a loud voice. And, again, the Word of the Lord did what it said. The Word carried the breath of God into the tomb and into the flesh and bones of Lazarus and Lazarus came out!

Two stories – giving us two images of death brought to life by a Word of the Lord bearing the breath of the Spirit. Two stories of hope once lost and now restored. Two cases of God doing what God does – redeeming, restoring, reviving, recreating that which is lost or dead or hopeless.

The images are powerful. They stretch our imaginations. They confirm our faith in a loving God. They assure us that God keeps God’s promises, including the promise we received in our Baptism – that through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ, God forgives our sin, delivers us from death and grants us eternal life with Him in heaven forever.

But do we catch the significance of these images and those promises for our lives today – right now? Or are we like Martha, who believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world – but for whom death was still the last word? Are we like Martha, who was thinking primarily about what Jesus DIDN’T do that he could have done for her brother – not expecting God to do a NEW thing?

“I AM the resurrection and the life,” Jesus says. This is PRESENT tense. What does it mean to you and to me that Jesus IS the resurrection and the life – not only for eternity, but also here and now?

Paul wrote to the Romans: “We were buried therefore with Christ by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too, might walk in newness of life.” And in our reading today, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his spirit that dwells in you.”

What does death and resurrection look like in those who live and believe?

Here is one more story of a life restored – a story closer to our own time and our own experiences – that helps to answer that question. This is from the story of Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill tells of a drunken encounter with an old friend, who had once been a drunk himself.

“My friend made the point blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had admitted complete defeat. In effect he had been raised from the dead; suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known. Had this power originated in him?

“Obviously it had not. There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this was none at all. Here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then. Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table, straight out of the here and now.

“I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized. It went deeper than that. He was on a completely different footing. His roots grasped a new soil. Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans, when we want Him enough. At long last I saw; I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view.”

After this encounter, Bill entered the hospital for detoxification. His story continues: “There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time, that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins of omission and commission, and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch.”

With his friend’s help, Bill began to realize that he had some work ahead of him: amends to be made, relationships to be restored, new ways of thinking to be developed.

“Simple, but not easy,” he wrote. “A price had to be paid. It really meant the obliteration of self. I had to quit playing God. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all.

“These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.”

Bill W. received new life from God in the here and now through the Word of a friend bearing witness to God’s power in his own life. From Bill, the grace of God has rippled down through the years and throughout the entire world, touching millions of men and women, restoring health and hope where hope was long dead and gone.

That is just one story – a dramatic story to be sure – of how God’s grace is at work in the lives of God’s children between our Baptisms and our burials.

Martin Luther wrote in his large catechism, “A Christian life is nothing else than a daily Baptism, once begun and ever continued. For we must keep at it incessantly, always purging out whatever pertains to the old Adam, so that whatever belongs to the new person may come forth.”

That is the death and resurrection we are called to live out today and every day. It means letting God have God’s way with us – letting go and letting God continue to wash and wear away all that keeps us turned upon ourselves and away from Him. It means rearranging our priorities – consciously seeking to make all our own agendas and goals and desires and plans conform with God’s will for our lives and with God’s mission for the world.

Are you spiritually out of breath – worn out from trying to make things work they way YOU think they should? Is there a valley of dry bones somewhere in your heart? Is there a dark tomb filled with the stench of death? Are there fears or worries or troubles or habits or behaviors choking or smothering your spirit or hurting someone else? The Word of God speaks to all those places, bearing the breath of God that heals and redeems and restores us to newness of life.

Listen to that Word. Taste it in the bread and wine. Your sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. “For God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.