FIFTH
SUNDAY IN LENT Year A March 29, 2020
I’m very sad
that I’m not at church this weekend, as I know I would be singing my favourite
song…. “These are the days of
Elijah”. The song’s first words are,
“These are the days of Elijah, declaring the word of the Lord.” But it is the first words of the second verse
which echo our readings for today; “These are the days of Ezekiel, The dry
bones becoming as flesh”.
Who would have
thought, as we finished the year 2019, that the hopes of some to once again see
the roaring 20s would be dashed to see nothing more than a meow? Or maybe the WHO, world health organisation
might have. As Australia finished its
most devastating year of bush fires, this pandemic of Corona virus followed.
Although many
have died, I wonder what other deaths will follow. Businesses are closed and more struggling to
remain open, gradually close their doors also.
Those retail shops that aren’t food and basics find themselves
over-stocked as fewer people go through their doors due to the governments plea
to stay at home as much as possible.
People are being abused though they are trying to do the right
thing. I heard the story of a small gym
boot camp group being abused. They were
in the open doors with large distance between them and doing the best they
could to remain healthy and continue business, only to be abused by others as
if they were flouting the law.
Will we soon
be a valley of dry bones?
While the
rules of who and what and how many, could be an exclusion to self-isolation,
continued to confuse, the churches, big and small were told to shut.
So shut we
did.
Will we soon
be a valley of dry bones?
The church
continues to strive to reach out. There
will be many streaming online and alternate forms of worship mostly via the
internet, but there are many for whom church was their safe place and their
place of belonging, their family, and these people are not as savvy with the
internet. These are the elderly…..
already isolated in many ways, now even more so.
The homeless
who live on the streets, but blend in feeling the comfort and companionship of
the regular passers-by, now confused as to why the street are empty.
Currently we
have a confused, angry, frightened community, with our businesses in
decay. Will we soon become a valley of dry bones?
The Psalm for
today also echoes our waiting for this pandemic to end; “Out of the depths I cry to you O LORD. …..If
you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you….. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in
his word I hope. ….. with him is great power to redeem.”
I love the way
the Psalms are often crying out to God from the depths and out of heart
ache. These are honest emotions offered
to God…. Fears and desperation, brokenness and pain, all given to God and then
acknowledging the goodness of God…. And waiting.
We are also
waiting and crying to God from the depths.
From Ezekiel 37:2
“He led me all around them; there were
very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.”
Some things
that have been said about these bones, they were very dry and so they were long
dead and their hope was also far beyond revival. There is also a sense of disgrace as we read
this is the proud and chosen Israelite nation, hope cut off and bones
exposes. The scene for our prophet is a
very intense nightmarish reality about the state of his nation. But God asks him, “Can these bones live”….
God knows!
One thing is
for certain. Each reading echoes the
same truth. This truth is spoken plainly
in our reading to the Romans, 8:6 “To set
the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and
peace.”
I’ve heard
people speak about the Bible and say that it is a like a road map through this
life and it is a guide. It is a whole lot
more than that, because this life ends.
The Bible contains God’s word to people and people’s interactions and
struggle to understand. It is mostly
about us trying to live this life and God trying to tell us that we are only
seeing a tiny part of the picture that he knows. And so he shows us dead bones and asks if
they can live. Any one other than the
prophet would simply say NO. But the
important message for us today is not so much that they did live, but how it
was that they were revived.
God told the
prophet to prophesy…. To speak the word of God to the bones, to declare the
word of the LORD.
Now, here is a
fine line. I’ve heard people say that we
need to pray and agree… such and such…
that is not the word of the Lord.
The word of the Lord needs to be according to God’s will. In fact let’s now go to our Gospel reading
for some clarification.
Our Gospel
reading is the story of Lazarus. Lazarus
was the brother of the famous Biblical sisters, Martha and Mary. Word had reached Jesus that Lazarus was sick,
but Jesus delayed in going. Jesus knew
what was going to happen, but also knew that the Jews there were wanting to put
him to death. Timing was important. By the time that Jesus set off and finally
reached the home of Lazarus, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.
Martha and
Mary had many people consoling them and when Jesus arrived Martha acknowledged
that if Jesus had been there Lazarus would not have died. She also acknowledged her belief that Lazarus
would rise again on the last day. She had
hope and faith. And then Jesus tells
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?"
This is actually
really hard to grasp for us all. And
there is one super important fact that we must grasp. The dry bones lived because the prophet declared
the word of the LORD. Jesus IS the word
of the LORD.
Right here and
now today, we can be living our eternal life, but the only way we do that is
through the living word of God – Jesus Christ.
Romans tells
us, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the
Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.”
Please
understand that God is concerned with our mortal life here on earth, other-wise
why did he weep? When Jesus was with the
sisters and surrounded by the mourners he wept.
God desires to
give us good things and desires for us to live well. That was the plan from the beginning when it
tells us he placed mankind in the Garden of Eden with every good thing. Any discomfort was such a concern that God
ensured that we were provided with all we desired.
Jesus asked
the mourners to remove the stone cover to the tomb of Lazarus. The ladies were surprised. They were not expecting dry bones, they were
expecting the smell of death and decay.
But because they believed that Jesus was no ordinary man, and perhaps
because they believed he was the resurrection and the life, they had the stone
removed, the tomb opened. And so, the prophesy of Ezekiel is fulfilled because
the those who know the writings of the prophets would have been familiar with
this reading from Ezekiel 37:13 “And you
shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from
your graves, O my people. I will put my
spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil;
then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the
LORD.”
Lazarus was
restored and the people were given every confirmation possible that Jesus was
who he claimed to be – the Messiah.
But who is
Jesus for us? Has the story been told
and our faith grown cold…. The fears of the season, clouding our reason and
leaving us frozen in doubt and despair?
Have we
become, or are we becoming a valley of dry bones, as we feel we are 4 days in
the tomb of this time of pandemic. What
we need is … the word of God….
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