God Takes Our Dry Bones
and Gives Us Life
Sermon preached at
St. Mark’s,
by The Rev. Thomas C. Pumphrey, March 9, 2008
Fifth Sunday in Lent (year A): John 11:1-45, Ezekiel 37:1-14
John 11:1-45 (NRSV) Now a certain man was ill,
Lazarus of
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already
been in the tomb four days. Now
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with
her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said,
“Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began
to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said,
“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from
dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave,
and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha,
the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench
because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you
that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the
stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard
me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the
crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had
said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came
out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a
cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and
had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NRSV) The hand of the Lord came upon
me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the
middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were
very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal,
can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me,
“Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the
Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you,
and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon
you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and
you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as I had been commanded;
and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came
together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh
had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the
breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe
upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the
breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast
multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of
This morning’s readings are words of hope in the midst of sorrow and suffering. Hope for life in the valley of dry bones, hope for resurrection in the face of death.
This parish has our own story of hope and loss today. I am
sad to share with you that Nancy Saunders, wife of the late Grier Saunders,
died this past week. Her funeral will be tomorrow morning at St. Peter Roman
Catholic church, and her body will be buried here at St. Mark’s next to Grier’s
grave, so recently filled. I had the odd privilege of being with Trish and Wes
and Katy while
I remember being in that same ICU over three years ago, praying with Grier. Grier was in that ICU for almost two months. Grier beat the odds and was eventually released, and we enjoyed the blessings of his company for another three years before he died this past January.
In Grier’s story, we hear a little version of Lazarus’
story. Not as dramatic, certainly, but similar. You see, eventually, Lazarus
died a second time. Lazarus was not rendered immortal when Jesus raised him.
Tradition tells us that Lazarus went to the
Today’s reading from the prophet Ezekiel takes on the theme
of resurrection, but here the message is more than just new life and the power
of God over death. Ezekiel is a prophet sent to the Jewish people in exile from
their country. After King David and King Solomon, the
In this vision, God shows Ezekiel a valley filled with dry
bones. “Son of Man,”[1] God
says to Ezekiel, “can these bones live?”
“These bones are the whole house of
Here, the Prophet foretells a resurrection made perfect in
the final resurrection, and the giving of the Holy Spirit made perfect in
Pentecost. But Ezekiel also brings a message of hope and a sign of the return
of the exiles to their home country. They eventually did return. They rebuilt
the walls of
I wondered why the story of Lazarus and the passage from Ezekiel, so rich with the message of resurrection, are told in Lent rather than Easter. Then I realized that these two passages don’t spend a lot of time on the outcome of God’s promise or Jesus’ miracle. Ezekiel’s prophecy comes long before the exiles were granted return. The Lazarus story spends more time describing the presence of Jesus in the face of Lazarus’ death than in his new life.
As we approach Holy Week and Easter, we find ourselves liturgically in a place that matches our life experience. In the church calendar, we are not yet arrived at Easter and all the celebration of the feast of the resurrection. In our lives, we have not arrived at a state of perfection. We still mourn Grier and Nancy’s death. We still experience injury and loss. We still mourn broken relationships and go through strained relationships, and we know that life ahead will not be perfect. We still struggle in ourselves to find a wholeness that we deeply desire, and we struggle for a deeper relationship with God, broken by our sin and neglect.
But these dry bones of our life are not the whole story—our losses do not have the victory. We hear these readings in Lent because these events made a real change in people’s lives while they still awaited the final renewal of life. The raising of Lazarus and the prophecy of the dry bones show God’s power over death itself, and promise us a victory for us at the final resurrection of the dead. But these passages of Scripture also promise us a victory today even in this imperfect world.
Even in this imperfect and temporary world, people are healed, relationships are restored, communities are renewed. Forgiveness and reconciliation are shared where once there was only hatred. Hope that we once thought lost is granted again!
I wouldn’t trade those three years with Grier, even though he spent most of them in a wheelchair. I rejoice in the reconciliation I’ve felt in my own relationships and seen in the lives of others. So many of us tangibly know the power of God to take the dry bones of our lives that are long dead and dry and bring to them new life!
The strength of these readings is that we can know the life changing power of God even as we walk through those valleys of dry bones, even as we weep with Jesus at the grave, even as we struggle in relationships not yet fully restored. We have more than a vague promise for a future joy. We have the joy of God’s power changing our lives today! Jesus not only said “I am the resurrection.” Jesus also said “I am the life.”
Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to him from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus our Lord. Glory to him today.
[1] The NRSV renders this phrase as “mortal” to avoid the masculine gender; however, the phrase is literally “son of man,” a title that Jesus took on with a meaning far from generic mortality.