“Can these bones live?"

Ezekiel 37:1-10 and John 11: 32-44

Mar. 26, 2023

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Lent purists might find today’s passages a bit jarring. We still have two whole weeks until Easter, so why did the lectionary committee choose two stories of resurrection for us right here in the middle of Lent? 

Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves? 

Growing up, I always thought of The Resurrection with a capital T and a capital R. It referred to ONE thing - The Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter. And regardless of how we understood that story, it definitely felt unique to me.

So much so, in fact, that when I first heard the story of Lazarus as a young adult, I was incredulous. “Wait a minute. Someone ELSE in the Bible was raised from the dead? How is that possible?” I thought, “Wasn’t Resurrection something special that ONLY Jesus could do?”

Well, it turns out I had missed a few key things about Resurrection. For starters, Jesus’s friend Lazarus is not the only other person raised from the dead in the Bible. There are two others in the Second Testament - Jairus’s daughter and the widow of Nain’s son.

Okay, fair enough, Jesus can bring people back to life. He’s special. He’s the Messiah. 

But wait, there’s more! It turns out Resurrection is ALL OVER THE BIBLE. [1] There are three stories in 1 and 2 Kings alone of Elijah and Elisha bringing people back from the dead. One of them even happened after Elisha had died. A nameless man who died was tossed into the same grave as Elisha’s bones and the story goes that as soon as his body touched Elisha’s BONES he “came to life and stood on his feet.” [2]

And in the Second Testament, Jesus isn’t the only one involved in Resurrection. There are stories of both Peter and Paul raising people from the dead in Acts. One of these stories is a favorite of preachers: Paul was preaching and a young man named Eutychus was sitting in a window. The story goes Eutychus “began to sink into a deep sleep while Paul went on even longer.” [3] Eutychus fell three stories to his death. And the author of Acts tells us that Paul rushed downstairs and revived him. And the moral of that story is: 1) sermons should be brief and engaging, and 2) if you’re a long-winded preacher like Paul you’d better also be able to work miracles.

In all seriousness, though, Resurrection is everywhere in the Bible. It turns out that it’s not just about Jesus. Easter is simply one story of many that points that way to this powerful theological concept of Resurrection that is present not only in Christianity but Judaism and many other religions as well. Heck, Resurrection even exists outside the confines of formal religious thought because it’s present in our natural world. Every single year the world grows cold in winter and everything looks like it’s dead. And every single year spring returns and the world greens up again. The end isn’t the end. Things continue. 

I, for one, have never seen a human being come back from the dead. My mind immediately goes into all kinds of contortions trying to understand it. “Well, maybe the kid wasn’t really dead but just unconscious.” And I have a lot of questions like, “Why did Jesus love Lazarus so much that he brought him back to life and yet countless people I have loved have died and stayed dead? Does that mean they’re not as loved as Lazarus?”

Resurrection stories can sometimes feel like a slap in the face when we’re grieving or scared. They can feel flippant or trite. They can even make us angry. Because they are bewildering. 

And yet….here they are. Story after story after story of new life arising out of the ashes of hopeless situations. Perhaps the story from Ezekiel is easier to stomach because it’s so far-fetched. Ezekiel’s vision feels like just that - a VISION. Something that points the way to a bigger truth. Ezekiel is called upon to prophesy to dry bones. And when the breath of God - that spirit, that ruach that has been present since the dawn of creation - moves over the bones, they are revived. 

Hope in a hopeless place. Life in the valley of the shadow of death. A promise that the breath of God is with us even when all feels desolate. A vision of something incredible that bewilders.

These Resurrection stories are what cause many of us to testify that although we don’t know what exactly awaits us after our mortal bodies die, we are certain that we will continue to be held in God’s love and that whatever comes next will be good. 

And I find comfort in noticing that our Resurrection stories are not simple or sanitized. They aren’t cliched feel-good stories. After all, when Jesus goes to see his friends after Lazarus dies, we’re told that he weeps. He doesn’t swoop in with superhero powers. He does the same thing we all do when someone we love dies - he mourns. These stories are big enough to hold the reality of our grief and hope at the same time. In the midst of our despair, these stories remind us that bones can live AND we can weep alongside Jesus at the same time. There’s room for all of it. 

At the end of the day, Resurrection stories aren’t meant to be explained. They are meant to be experienced. 

So I want to close today’s sermon with something that invites us to experience Resurrection. I’m going to invite Greg up to help me share an interweaving of today’s passages from Ezekiel and John. It was written by the Rev. Wes Cain. Let all who have ears to hear, listen. 

Stories of Resurrection

(John 11:1-3,17-44 and Ezekiel 37:1-14)

(braided together by Rev. Wes Cain)

 

Greg:

A certain man, Lazarus, was ill. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This was the Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was ill.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, saying, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.”

 

The LORD’s power overcame me…

 

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was a little less than two miles from Jerusalem.

 

and while I was in the LORD’s spirit,  God led me out and set me down in the middle of a certain valley.

 

Many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary after their brother’s death.

 

It was full of bones.

 

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary remained in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.”

 

It was full of bones.

 

Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”

 

It was full of bones.

 

Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.”

 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

 

She replied, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.”

 

God led me through them all around, and I saw that there were a great many  of them on the valley floor,  and they were very dry.

 

 

After she said this, she went and spoke privately to her sister Mary, “The teacher is here and he’s calling for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Jesus. He hadn’t entered the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave, they followed her. They assumed she was going to mourn at the tomb.

 

God asked me, “Human one,  can these bones live again?”

 

When Mary arrived where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

 

Can these bones live again?

 

When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying also, he was deeply disturbed and troubled. He asked, “Where have you laid him?”

 

They replied, “Lord, come and see.”

 

Can these bones live again?

 

Jesus began to cry.

 

“Human one, can these bones live again?”

 

I said, “LORD God, only you know.”

 

The Jews said, “See how much he loved him!” But some of them said, “He healed the eyes of the man born blind. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

 

Then God said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Dry bones, hear the LORD’s word! The LORD God proclaims to these bones:  I am about to put breath in you, and you will live again. I will put sinews on you, place flesh on you, and cover you with skin. When I put breath in you, and you come to life, you will know that I am the LORD.”

 

Jesus was deeply disturbed again when he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone covered the entrance. Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”

 

I prophesied just as I was commanded. There was a great noise as I was prophesying, then a great quaking, and the bones came together, bone by bone. When I looked, suddenly there were sinews on them. The flesh appeared, and then they were covered over with skin. But there was still no breath in them.

 

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “Lord, the smell will be awful! He’s been dead four days.”

 

God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, human one! Say to the breath, The LORD God proclaims: Come from the four winds, breath! Breathe into these dead bodies and let them live.”

 

Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?”

 

I prophesied just as God commanded me. When the breath entered them, they came to life and stood on their feet, an extraordinarily large company.

 

So they removed the stone. Jesus looked up and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. I know you always hear me. I say this for the benefit of the crowd standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.”

 

“Human one, can these bones live again?”

 

Having said this, Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

 

God said to me, “Human one, these bones are the entire house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely finished.’ So now, prophesy and say to them, The LORD God proclaims: I’m opening your graves! I will raise you up from your graves, my people, and I will bring you to Israel’s fertile land. You will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, my people. I will put my breath in you, and you will live. I will plant you on your fertile land, and you will know that I am the LORD. I’ve spoken, and I will do it. This is what the LORD says.”

 

The dead man came out, his feet bound and his hands tied, and his face covered with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”

 

You will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, my people. I will put my breath in you, and you will live. I will plant you on your fertile land, and you will know that I am the LORD. I’ve spoken, and I will do it. This is what the LORD says.”

 

<Turning and looking at the other teller> Can these bones live again?

 

<Emphatically> Yes

NOTES:

[1] https://www.learnreligions.com/people-raised-from-the-dead-in-the-bible-4109363 

[2] 2 Kings 13:20-21

[3] Acts 20

“How do we begin again?”

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

March 5, 2023

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Y’all, I know you might not believe it: but we’ve got snakes again this week in our Bible passage. Last week we were in the Garden of Eden, way way back at the beginning of Genesis and there was a serpent. Today we’re in the Gospel of John with Jesus and Nicodemus and we’ve Still. Got. Snakes. 

When we talked about the serpent last week we listened to the wise words of the Rev. Danielle Shroyer who pointed out that “in the ancient world, snakes were a symbol of transformation. Their venom held the possibility of both poison and medicine.” [1] In Jesus' time snakes were symbols of both death (because snakes can kill you) and life (because in the ancient world they were symbols of fertility, too). 

Now, there’s a LOT going on in this short story about Nicodemus and the snakes might seem like a weird part to pull out and feature. You’re not wrong about that. The reason I want us to notice the snakes, though, is precisely this tension between poison or medicine, life and death. Hold onto that, okay?

Why is Jesus talking about snakes and Moses in the wilderness anyway? Let’s back up a bit. 

Nicodemus has come to Jesus at night. Nicodemus is such a relatable character, I think. He is both a person with authority, as a religious leader, and a person on the margins, as a Jew living in Roman-occupied Israel. Compared to some, he’s privileged. Compared to others, he’s not. He’s in-between, like a lot of us. 

Nicodemus, this leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus - also a Jewish leader in his own right but on the fringes. Jesus is new on the scene and he’s not a part of the status quo power structure that Nicodemus is a part of. And that is one of the things I love about Nicodemus - he’s unafraid to come to someone who might be perceived as lower in stature and learn from that person. 

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Perhaps he’s been tossing and turning and unable to rest …so he goes to talk to Jesus, to find out what this teacher who has “come from God” might be able to teach him. 

Even though some others within the formal power structure scoffed at Jesus or felt threatened by him, Nicodemus was curious. He wanted to learn more. He believed he still had things to learn. In this way, he serves as a model for all of us who are in leadership positions - which is to say, pretty much everyone. All of us have some realm where we have a bit of authority, whether it’s at work, or in our homes, our friend-groups, or even just in directing the flow of our own daily lives. We are all leaders. And this particular leader shows us the value of humility - always learning - and seeking out unexpected teachers and mentors. 

Nicodemus and Jesus have this esoteric, ranging dialogue about some pretty existential stuff. The author of John seems to want to drive home a couple of points here: first, that we must all be born again, just as Jesus tells Nicodemus in this encounter, and, second, that Jesus is a critically important part of that process. 

For those of us reading this in the year 2023, we’ve got to do a lot of excavating - a lot of setting aside contemporary interpretations of this passage to try and put ourselves in Nicodemus’s shoes. First of all, being “born again” has occupied a certain space in our contemporary religious landscape. And that famous verse, John 3:16, has been sucked up in the whirlwind of the modern big-E Evangelical movement. So we’ve got to deal with that, right?

I think it’s important to note that this passage does not have to be interpreted as being about going to heaven after you die. The phrase that Jesus uses in the 16th verse, “Everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life,” probably didn’t hit Nicodemus the same way it hits us. For starters, the Greek word there for “believes” is not about saying some magical words and accepting Jesus into your heart as your Lord and Savior. 

Belief in this instance is active. It’s about having confidence in another person. Putting your trust in them. Think back to Aladdin on the magic carpet holding out his hand to Jasmine, “Do you trust me?” he says. If she had simply said, “Yes,” and stayed with her feet planted where they were, that wouldn’t have been belief, right? Instead, she showed her faith in Aladdin by acting - she stepped onto the carpet with him. It’s not  just a thinking thing, not just a “saying some words” thing. 

So when Jesus says, “whoever believes in me” he’s talking about stepping onto the carpet, not just saying some words. 

And when Jesus talks about “eternal life” the Greek he uses is aionios zoe. That phrase simply means life that is without beginning and without end. As in always present from before the beginning of time until after the end of the Age. In other words, like God - the one who is without beginning and without end. Made in God’s image, just like Genesis says. To me, this speaks more of being a part of something bigger than myself - recognizing the ways I can be a part of God’s eternal Spirit. It’s about the quality of our lives, not just the quantity of our days. Life beyond borders and boundaries. Full, overflowing life that exists outside the confines of our individual identities and human bodies. 

In other words, believing in Jesus and having eternal life is about having an active confidence in Jesus - stepping onto that carpet like Jasmine did - in order to live an expansive, abundant, hope-filled life beyond the boundaries. A life held within the eternal love of God, who is without beginning and without end. 

Might this include saying a prayer of thanksgiving for who Jesus is? Sure. 

Might it also include hope for a life that continues beyond the confines of our physical bodies? Sure. 

But it’s about a lot more than that. 

Just as being “born again,” is not simply about “getting right with Jesus,” a la the massive Evangelical stadium revivals of the 1980s. Listen, I’m not going to bash on revivals because I have been swept up in the Spirit and moved to tears and joy in worship. I wouldn’t trade those experiences. I even responded to altar calls on more than one occasion in my youth. But all the altar calls in the world don’t make a person born again if we don’t become a new creation in Christ. And I have seen too many Christians talk about being born again who did not show the fruit of that new birth in their lives. Just as saying you believe in Jesus doesn’t mean much if you’re not actively trying to follow in his footsteps, saying you’re born again if you aren’t truly living in an altered way doesn’t sit right with most of us, either, does it?

And so we arrive back at the snakes. Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” 

That’s a reference to an weird little story in Numbers 21. The Israelites are wandering in the desert and having a rough time of it. Then God sends poisonous serpents among them. The snakes bite them and people die. The people, believing that God is punishing them, say to Moses, “We are really sorry. Please tell God we’re sorry and have God take these snakes away.” So Moses talks to God and God says, “Put a snake up on a pole and then anyone who is bitten can look at it and they will be healed.” So he does and they do. 

I told you it was weird. 

Jesus in the Gospel of John is comparing himself to the snake on the pole. That symbol of both death and life. 

And I think what Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus here is that taking Jesus’s hand and stepping with him onto that magic carpet is both about death and life. Jesus tells this other religious leader, if you want to roll with me you need to be born again. And the quiet part of that that he doesn’t say out loud here is that in order to be born again, we have to be willing to die a death of sorts. We have to be willing to let some things go in order to pick new things up. And when we look at the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we see this so clearly. In the way he lived and taught - in his death and resurrection - Jesus is both a healer and a reminder of what ails us. Just like that snake on the pole, symbolizing death and new life. 

We know that Nicodemus accepted this offer to find active faith in Jesus’s ministry because we see him again at the end of Gospel of John - showing up after Jesus’s crucifixion with Joseph of Arimathea to make sure Jesus’s body is properly cared for. He steps onto the carpet and his life surely expanded because of that choice. 

Nicodemus comes to Jesus as one person, but the lessons we can take away from this story go way beyond an individual life. 

Through this story, God invites organizations to be born anew. Families to be born anew. Congregations. Communities. Schools. Governments. Yes, even whole nations. God holds in front of us the possibility of new life. The possibility of turning from old ways that harm and creating new ways of being together that bring abundant life for all of Creation. The Spirit holds in front of us the possibility of aionios zoe - the fullness of life - and says, “Do you trust me?”

Thanks be to God. 

NOTES:

[1] Sanctified Art devotional.