Can these bones live?

Lou DeSeau and I have shared a solemn responsibility several times, of transferring the ashes of beloved members and friends of the congregation into the cylinder that fits in our columbarium.

Dry, very dry bits of bone and ash, enough to almost fill that cylinder.

Is that the end of the story?

The question “Can these bones live?” can only be answered as Ezekiel has done: “Lord, you know.”

The only alternative is a flat

“No, these bones are dead.”

If there is more, only God knows.

That valley appears as a total wasteland.

When we listen closely to the text, we could be wondering if the vision is about actual death,

or about the death-like hopelessness felt by people who are sitting in exile in Babylon, far from home.

In the end, it doesn't matter which way we understand the text, because the outcome is the same:

only God can change the situation.

Our reason for celebration this night is that particular freedom which belongs to God and which he chooses to exercise;

the freedom to righteously judge

and to create anew;

the freedom to tear down to death

and to raise up to new life;

the freedom to remain faithfully

in spite of death.

That is the freedom that Christ exercises this night, for us, for our benefit,

for our life.

Over the centuries, there have been those who have wanted to take that freedom away from God,

claiming that it is not proper for God to work in these ways.

They claim that at his Baptism in the Jordan, the Spirit called Christ was added to the nice man Jesus,

and then at the cross, that Spirit of Christ departed, leaving the man Jesus to die alone on the cross.

(And of course they would point to the cry from the cross, My God my God, why have you forsaken me?”

without remembering that Psalm 22 is not about hopelessness, but about confidence that God will vindicate the sufferer.

The Psalm ends in praise!)

But if Jesus was only a man, with the divine part somehow separated from him,

if that were all that could be said,

then things have not really changed at all, there is no Good News,

and things are just as hopeless as always.

Dry bones.

But Gogh has used his freedom in a wonderful way – to remain faithful all the way to death,

and then to do a new thing,

to blow the breath of life into hopelessly dry bones,

to recreate life, life that now has death behind it!

Several times in the past weeks, we have joyfully pondered Paul's words in Romans:

We have been buried 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. [Rom.6:4]

That is what Kevin and Matt have just begun to experience this night, and they will spend the rest of their lives trying to understand it with us!

Can these bones live?

--the ones in the columbarium,

--as well as the ones still walking around these days but without hope?

Lord, you know!

And in resurrection for Jesus and in Holy Baptism for us,

you have made new life.

Let all who can hear this with joy

give out the glad refrain:

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Alleluia, Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.