Dem bones gonna rise again!

Yet there is a profound meaning to the promise that dem bones gonna rise again. I'm sure the song began with African slaves kidnapped, brutalized, and brought to America who amazingly found hope in their captors' Christian faith.

The powerful vision of Ezekiel also came in a situation of utter despair. Ezekiel was evidently one of the movers and shakers in the kingdom of Judah. So he was with the first group taken into exile in Babylon as the Babylonians tried to find ways to cure Judah of its pretensions to greatness.

Yet the people of Judah were convinced that God needed their help to keep his promises and so they kept taking things into their own hands and rebelling against the Babylonians.

After the Babylonians finally gave up trying to work with the people and leaders of Judah, they sent in their armies, destroyed Jerusalem, its temple, and all fortified cities in the land and brought pretty much anybody who was anybody to Babylon where they could watch them. In this situation the people came to Ezekiel with their complaint:

Our bones are dried up and we are cut off completely. There is no hope and no future for us. The vision of the dry bones is God's answer to their despair.

As Christians of course we know another situation of absolute despair. On a certain Friday the cause of Jesus of Nazareth was completely lost and hopeless. Tortured and brutalized to death, he had no future and the few people willing to admit a connection with him could only give him a decent burial.

Yet God had a little surprise in store He is not here; he is risen and goes ahead of you.

Go and make disciples of all nations God has a special way of dealing with hopeless situations.

The God who raised Jesus is not limited by the dry bones of a devastated army. God' s Word can bring those bones together and breathe new life into them.

All of us from time to time pass through our own valley of dry bones. We see no hope, no future, no glimmer of possibility. But our desperation does not limit God's ability to act.

Perhaps it is a health situation, or family turmoil, or economic struggles. Certainly in our churches in North America we see lots of dry bones but not enough life.

A pastor friend recently posted a wise comment about the absence of young people from our churches. He suggested that while the culture has taken them into exile with all its seductions God used the exile to lead the people of Judah to rediscover him and his Word. Perhaps in their exile God will visit young people today and raise up prophets to lead them back.

For while the exile was a political and religious disaster for the People of God it was also their salvation. Judaism in a real sense was created during the Exile in Babylon. Neither modem Judaism nor Christianity would have been possible without the radical surgery of the exile.

Without in any way denying our struggles and despair in our church life or our individual lives today; the question is not so much what are we going to do with this pile of dry bones that surrounds us, but what can God do with them.

Son of Man, can these bones live?

O Lord God, you know.

Christians dare not give in to negativity or despair no matter how hopeless our situation seems to be. The God who raised Jesus is the God of hopeless causes.

The Exile of Judah resulted in the birth of Judaism and later of Christianity.

The crucifixion of Jesus resulted in his resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit along with the spread of the Gospel into the whole world.

God has a future for us and he doesn't need our help to create it.

Our task is to live by faith, hope, and love even in this valley of dry bones. Our task is to hear and speak the words of promise that God declares to us as he announces that our sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake, and as he feeds us in our exile with the Body and Blood of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

Can these bones live? Listen to the Word of the Lord: Dem bones gonna rise again!

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.