Advent 2
Ezekiel 37:1-14
God
is wild and holy, untamed by our efforts to tame, contain, or fully understand.
The book of Ezekiel reveals some of the nature of a wild and holy God. The
prophet Ezekiel speaks to the people of Israel as they are in exile in Babylon.
He is among the first deportation from Israel and is still there as two
generations of children have been born on Babylonian soil.
Ezekiel
rails against Israel’s idolatry (worshipping of other gods) and failure to
trust in the covenant God has made with them. He receives and presents visions
of God’s holiness that pursues Israel in a chariot, seeking to overtake them,
even as God’s people flee to other paths.
Ezekiel
notes the unfaithfulness of the people again and again. In almost the same
breath, he pours forth promises from the Lord that the covenant will still be
upheld from the Lord’s end. That God will not fail to keep God’s word is the
refrain of the fiercesome song that is the book of this prophet.
In
chapter 33, Ezekiel gets word from a refugee from Jerusalem. The temple has
fallen. The place where God was believed to reside was now a pile of rubble.
What does that mean for where God is now? How can God act without a base of
operations? What will become of those who called themselves people of God?
Now
you will see, Ezekiel says. Now you will understand God’s faithfulness, God’s
holiness, God’s way of being in the world and beyond. And so we come to the
vision described in chapter 37. Up to this point, Ezekiel has been describing
the destruction and pain of the Israelites in Babylon and scattered throughout
Egypt and along the trade routes of Northern Africa and toward India.
The
scene we see at the beginning of 37 is a battlefield. In ancient (and not so
ancient) tradition, the victors did not bury the bodies of the defeated. Those
who lost in battle and who lost their lives were left where they fell.
Presumably the victors carried any living off into slavery or also slew them on
the spot. The dead lay out, under the hot sun, as carrion for all predators,
including the birds of prey. The bones would have been picked clean and then
sun-bleached. The battlefield, with its dry, gruesome memorial, would have been
a testament to the strength of the victors.
So
we are talking about a scene of death. Nothing living. Nothing even rotting.
Just death. Yet nothing is too dead for God. Nothing is beyond God’s ability to
restore life and bring wholeness. Nothing is past where God can heal and bring
peace.
This
is the vision and message that God brings to Ezekiel to tell the people who are
prepared to abandon all hope. God doesn’t need a base camp. God is wild and
free and able to bring life out of death.
For
we who are Easter people, that God brings life out of death is a refrain we are
almost too used to hearing. Yet, that was not the case in this time period. The
people of Israel, at this time, did not have a fully developed embrace of
resurrection. It was not part of their religious faith or understanding. Thus,
this vision was ASTOUNDING. God would bring dead things back to life… God would
restore life to Israel… a life of promise and possibility… enfleshed, muscled,
and filled with breath, with the Spirit.
Why
does God do this? We would be quick to say because of grace. Others would say
it is for the sake of God’s reputation. I don’t think it is grace or because
God is worried about what people think. Instead, this vision is a revelation, like so many from
Scripture, about the fundamental nature of God. God is a God of revelation,
resurrection, and reformation. Not just in Babylon, not just in 15th
century Germany, not just in the person of Jesus (though especially in the person of Jesus), but in all times and all
places.
God
brings life out of death… creation out of a void… light out of darkness in all
times and all places. This is who and what God is about. That is the essence of
the wild and holy nature of God. What we might declare dry, life pours out of –
by the hand of God. What we would declare dead lives- by the hand of God. What
we would declare unchangeable is recreated- by the hand of God.
There
is nothing that is too dead for the God who has called us, named us, and
claimed us. Not society, not creation, not the church, not anything in our
lives. Thus, we are called to look- look for real signs of life, look for the
shoots of promise growing, look for springs of hope pouring forth. We too, like
the Israelites, must avoid the idolatry of resignation, of impatience, of lack
of eager anticipation. What in your life, in your neighborhood, in the world
needs resurrection? What is the vision God is giving you of flesh on that
skeleton, of breath in that body, of movement in what was previously still?
Many
centuries ago, Advent lasted until Epiphany. It was much more clearly a season
marked by prayer and anticipation of God’s promises in Christ. Slowly, as
Christmas became a bigger celebration, Advent became smaller. It was still a
marker to think about Christ coming again, but as that became intertwined with anticipating
the celebration of Jesus’ birth… Advent became somewhat secondary.
However,
Advent is the season to speak to dry bones. Advent is the season that speaks to
God’s wild holiness. Advent is the season that says we are engaged in a
mystery- a mystery which we cannot fully understand or resolve, but in which we
are called to full participation.
If
you are here, if you can hear my voice, if you are reading this… you, like
Ezekiel, are called to speak to dry bones- whatever they might be in your life.
Declare that the very nature of God is to restore life to what seems dead.
Speak firmly that nothing, nothing is too dead for God. The very hope we have
in the Christ we await is the clearest revelation of that truth: nothing is too
dead for resurrection. God is wild and holy, untamed by our efforts to tame,
contain, or fully understand.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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