Posted On: June 02nd, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Festival of Pentecost Trinity Lutheran Church 4 June 2006 Murdock, NE
+ Jesu Juva +
Ezekiel 37:1-14
The Lord gives Pastor Ezekiel a congregation. Quite a congregation. No pastor in his right mind would take a call to serve it. And I guarantee you wouldn’t join it. You’d want no part of it. Yet, the Lord puts Ezekiel there. He is this congregation’s pastor. He is the Lord’s instrument at that place.
Is this some kind of sick joke? Is Ezekiel being punished? After all, this exiled, rural congregation isn’t just dying. It is dead! Warning! If you squeamish don’t look! It’s a skull and crossbones place. Been dead for quite some time. The bones are dry as dust. Grind them up and put them in dog food and who knows what would spread!
Valley of Dry Bones Church. Take a good look Ezekiel. Walk back and forth. Check it out. Indeed. It’s dead all right. Welcome to Valley of Dry Bones Church Ezekiel! Here is where you will serve. Among the dead! A congregation the Lord put to death through the Babylonians. The wages of sin – is DEATH!
And then comes the big theological question: “Preacher Son of man, can these bones live?” What’s your answer? Your answer would be: “No way! Not a chance! Dead is dead. Let’s go find a Spirit-filled congregation that’s alive, vibrant, and growing. We want nothing to do with death. Death is contagious. Hang around here any longer and we might die too! Ezekiel, stay if you want to. Be a dufus! We’re out a here!”
But the Lord’s question remains. “Preacher Son of man, can these bones live?” “You alone know Lord,” is Ezekiel’s answer. Indeed. Only the Lord knows.
What do you do with the dead? You bury them. Put them six feet under. But the Lord’s cup of tea is raising the dead! And that’s what He’s up to with Pastor Ezekiel. The Lord will raise from the dead Valley of Dry Bones Church.
How? Through a sermon preached. “Prophesy to these bones Ezekiel! Say to them: ‘This is what the Lord says.’”
Can you believe it? The Lord will raise the dead through a Word. His Word. His Word preached from a pastor’s mouth. Yes. Yes, indeed!
After all, the Holy Spirit, the Lord’s breath, is in, with and under the Lord’s spoken Word. When the Lord speaks His Word through Pastor Ezekiel, the Holy Spirit is there doing His work too. Giving life. Life from death. New Creation Resurrection.
God tells Pastor Ezekiel about his soon to be risen congregation: “I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 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.”
And so Ezekiel preaches. And as he preaches God’s Holy Spirit filled Word does what it says. “There was a noise. A rattling sound. Bones come together. Tendons, flesh and skin.”
And then Ezekiel preaches some more. More sermon. This vast congregation receives new life through the Word of God preached. Valley of Dry Bones Congregation raised from the dead. Resurrected. A new creation.
All through God’s Word. God’s Word preached. And God’s Word preached is Holy Spirit filled. To give life to the skull and crossbones dead.
Ezekiel, in and of himself, is a nothing. Nothings can’t raise the dead. The Lord does. But He does it through His Word preached by Ezekiel. The pastor’s there to preach the Word. And that Word is full of His Breath, His Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. An Old Testament Pentecost.
So what are you afraid of? Why are you so afraid of dying to sin? Why are you so frightened by the grave in the cemetery? What is it that you trust so much that you will not trust the Lord with your life, let alone, your death? What false gods do you love with all your heart? Whoever and whatever they are, they promise a Sabbath but they never let you rest. They promise life but only deliver death. They promise heaven but only deliver hell. Your idols will crack some day. And then what? Maybe they’ve cracked already. Now what? Who will you trust then Valley of Dry Bones – Lutheran Church?
You have been given to trust God the Father who has sent His Son Jesus Christ to do the Good Friday job. The dying in your place job. The taking of all your sin in His Body task. In Him you are forgiven.
You have been given to trust in what the Lord’s given you in your Baptism. Drowned your old Adam there. There the Holy Spirit raised you, resurrected you in Christ to live a new life of faith in Jesus. Baptism, your little Pentecost.
You have been give to trust what He promises to do for you and all those who have fallen asleep in Jesus on the Last Day. Listen again to the sermon Ezekiel preached: “I am going to open your graves and bring you back up from them . . . Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 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.”
The Lord is everything. He is life. He is our salvation. We are nothing. We are dead dry bones. But He has raised us from the dead with Christ and in our Baptisms. In the Absolution and sermon spoken in our ears and hearts. Holy Spirit-filled Words. Giving and doing what they say: life from the dead. Resurrection. New Creation work.
Word and Sacraments. The Divine Service. Behold Easter and Pentecost every Sunday. Right before our very eyes.
“Son of Man, Trinity Lutheran Church, can these bones live?”
Yes Lord. We know that you are the Lord. You’ve sent your Son Jesus to die and rise for us. You’ve given us your breath, the Holy Spirit. And on the Last Day we will see who we’ve always been: raised from the dead Good Friday-ed and Pentecost-ed sinners in Christ.