It’s
important, I think, in order to understand our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel,
to read the rest of the story so to speak, to read what comes just before this
reading in the 37th chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. And what comes before is this: Ezekiel has a
vision – a vision in which he is standing in the middle of a vast valley
covered with bones, dry bones baking in the sun. A vast army that has been slaughtered there. The
Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy, to pray, over these bones and say “dry bones
hear the word of the Lord!” He does, and
in this vision the bones begin to rattle and move together and sinews and flesh
and skin cover the bones. And Ezekiel prays
over them some more, saying “from the four winds come, O breath, and breathe
into these slain that they may come to life.
The breath entered them, they came to life and stood on their feet, a
vast army.”
It
is this vision of Ezekiel that is the foundation for the Lord’s promise to His
people Israel and to you and me that was just proclaimed – “I will open your
graves. I will put my Spirit within you
that you may come to life. I have spoken
and I will do it, says the Lord.”
The
theme of this reading, the theme of all our readings, is how the power of God
can bring life out of death. It’s
appropriate for this season of Lent, and it’s appropriate for this season of
springtime. As I was pondering these
readings the other day, driving along, I looked at all the trees, stripped and
barren, and thought of these dry bones.
How even though we’re in April the trees and bushes still have the look
of winter – lifeless, bleak. And I had a
vision of my own – how in a few short weeks these same trees and bushes will be
bursting forth with new life – first little buds, then fresh green leaves, then
fully clothed, wrapped in green. Some
bursting with color – pinks and blues and yellows as they flower in succession
- the magnolias, then the cherries, the lilacs, the dogwoods. As we watch this happen around us each year,
do we stop to think about what a miracle that is? It’s a sign to us every year of how God can
bring new life out of what seems to be death.
Our
Gospel tells of Our Lord’s greatest miracle, the greatest sign, of who He was,
and is. His greatest example of bringing
life out of death, foreshadowing His own rising from the dead on Easter
Sunday. You see, Lazarus didn’t seem
to be dead. He was dead, four days buried
in the tomb. “There will be a stench,”
Martha tells Him, oblivious to what the Lord plans to do. But for the glory of His Father, and so that
all there in Bethany that day might know that He, Jesus, is the Son of God whom
the Father has sent, that He, Jesus, has power over life and death, He stands
before the tomb, tells them to roll away the stone, and commands this dead man,
“Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus obeys.
It’s
an awesome story, mind-blowing if we stop to really take it in, if we don’t let
it go in one ear and out the other, since, after all, we’ve heard it a hundred
times. An awesome example of the power
of this Jesus fellow, but (if we’re honest) a little hard to relate to. What does this story, or Ezekiel’s vision for
that matter, have to do with your life and mine? Certainly this Gospel is a foreshadowing of
our own entering into eternal life, but what’s the practical take-away for us,
right here and now?
I
think the answer is this –
You
and I are in our own tombs. Yes, I’m
convinced that because of our fallen sinful nature, what St. Paul calls “living
in the flesh,” that you and I, each in our own way, are sort of dead and buried
in our own tombs. You and I are in some
way, “dry bones.” In our own tombs –
tombs, perhaps, of despair and hopelessness.
Tombs, perhaps, of greed, avarice, self-centeredness. Perhaps tombs of sinful habits or addictions,
whatever they might be – alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex, gambling. Tombs maybeof laziness, gossip, unforgiven grudges,
whatever. We lie in our tombs, bound and
wrapped and unable to move, for four days, or forty years.
And
in this season of Lent, in the last couple weeks of this season of Lent, Our
Lord stands before us, before you and me, perturbed, perhaps,s that we haven’t
fully trusted Him, haven’t fully understood who He is, haven’t fully believed
that He is the Son of God sent by the Father to save us.
And
He commands you and me to COME OUT of our tombs. To repent and be converted, to rise and walk
out, unwrapped, unburdened, and free. He
stands before us not in judgment or condemnation but with an ocean of mercy,
living water which He invites us to plunge into.
And
the place in which we most intimately and powerfully encounter that mercy is in
the confessional. In the Sacrament of
Reconciliation. Where we kneel, sinful
and sorrowful, ask His forgiveness and mercy, and draw deeply from the well of His
grace, His power, to go forth freed from whatever binds us. To open the door, walk out, free.
He
invites this day us to trust in His mercy and power, the same power which
healed the blind man and raised Lazarus from the dead, the same power which can
free us from our own tombs of sin if we’ll only trust Him. The same power which will make our dry bones
rattle and shake, grow flesh and skin, rise and be filled with His Spirit. “I have promised and I will do it,” says the
Lord.
