Can These Bones Live?
Here are the questions that I want you to ponder today: Is it possible for the dead to live again? Is it possible for a 146-year-old church to thrive and grow? Is it possible for those of us who have been Christians for more than ten years to see new facets to our faith, new directions for our church, and new possibilities for ministry in the world? What is God calling us to be today… as Christians… and as a church… in this place? Are we willing to rise to the challenge? That’s it. Once again, if you can answer all those questions, then you can sleep through the rest of the message today.
When God took Ezekiel out to the Valley of the Dry Bones, there was a purpose behind their journey. Ezekiel was a prophet to the Judeans immediately before and after the fall of Jerusalem. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had already fallen and its inhabitants had been carted off to Babylon long ago. Ezekiel went with the first captives of Judea to Babylon… the wealthy, privileged, educated class… and he told them how it would get worse before it got better. At the point where our text begins, Jerusalem has fallen and the Judeans have been in exile for several years… with no hope in sight. God was dealing with a stubborn people… a people who had strayed away from the path that God had set for them… a people only interested in their own advancement… their own entertainment… and their own wellbeing. They had reaped the reward of their sin in the slaughter of their friends and families, the destruction of their homes and fortunes, and the total devastation of their land. The bones in the valley that God brought Ezekiel to represented the children of God... the lost Kingdoms of Israel and Judea. Those children of God, like the bones, were destroyed… disconnected… without hope… and without any sign of life. Could they rise to the challenge of revival? It would take a lot of work. They would need to change. Could they? Could they, once again, be God’s people?
As humans, we all like to root for the underdog. We want the Cinderella team to overcome all the odds. We want David to beat Goliath. We want the Mets to win the pennant. And we have an incredible nostalgia for the past. We want the past to live again. We want Alexander the Great to ride again. We want Marilyn Monroe to walk again. And we want to see dinosaurs roam the earth again. I remember how many people walked around wearing amber necklaces and amber bracelets after they saw the movie “Jurassic Park.” We were all convinced that dinosaurs could walk the earth again… recreated from microscopic bits of dinosaur DNA found buried in pieces of amber. So, when confronted with the difficulty of raising up the House of Israel and restoring the children of God, we naturally ask, “What’s the problem here? This should be a “slam-dunk.” (Longer Pause) What is the problem here?
Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Church in Phoenix, Arizona, and the author of several books, including The Purpose-Driven Church, has often said that it is much easier to start a new church than to revive an old one. Why is that? What is the problem with reviving old churches? The biggest problem with reviving old churches, according to Rick Warren, is resistance to change. You see, very few people… if any… like change. Change means doing something different… and most of us are very comfortable with where we are. We like things to be predictable. We like things that we have seen before… roads we’ve gone down before… people we’ve met before. We like things that don’t challenge us to any extraordinary effort. We have developed some very comfortable ruts… ruts we like to be in… ruts we are reluctant to leave. So, most of us resist change.
How do we resist change? There are many, many ways in which we resist change. Some of us bury our heads in the sand, like an ostrich, and try to ignore what is going on around us. We refuse to get involved. We pretend that nothing is changing… and go on with our lives as if that were true. We get stuck where we are… and, in becoming stuck, we hold ourselves back… and we hold others back.
Some of us resist change by resorting to gossip. Gossip is casual conversation that is based upon rumor or hearsay… and is often malicious in nature. Whatever makes us uncomfortable… or whatever we do not understand… we tend to gossip about with others. Often, the only way that we can feel more comfortable about this thing that is creating upheaval in our established routine is by insinuating that there might be something wrong with it… that it might be founded on false principles… that it might be following wrong procedures… or that it is in some way, dangerous or foolhardy. This type of covert resistance shreds reputations. It tears at the fabric of our relationships. Gossip is manipulative and destructive. Worst of all, it is surreptitious… hiding in the shadows and dragging others down.
Still another covert way for some of us to resist change is by creating obstacles that slow the process down… a kind of passive resistance. Evidence of this resistance can seen when we miss meetings that are important… or we neglect a task that is critical to the process… literally dragging our feet to keep change from happening. All my life, I have listened to people complain about the Presbyterian way of forming committees to make decisions. “It takes too much time,” is usually the way that I hear it. And yet, I have seen committees move forward with decisions much more quickly than I am comfortable moving sometimes. Committees that drag their feet usually have members who want to control the process because they are afraid of the consequences of their decisions… fearful of change… uncertain of the reaction of others… or apprehensive about the future.
Did God suspect that the children of Israel might have some qualms about their future… given that they were living in bondage in a strange land… that their own land had been totally destroyed… and most of their people slaughtered? I am convinced of it. Did God think that the children of Israel might be too afraid to challenge the status quo… that they might prefer to just let those dusty old bones lie in that valley undisturbed? Oh, without a doubt. Did God imagine that the children of Israel might hesitate… might drag their feet… might resist another change… even if the change could restore them to being God’s people again? I think so.
So, God told Ezekiel that he would breathe on them… that they would be filled with his Spirit… and that through his Spirit, the dead would live again and they would know that he, the Lord, was God. This was not something that they had to do alone… God would be the author and the power at work in their midst. God would guide them through this change. God would give them the courage they needed to succeed. Just as the Spirit of God descended upon the disciples at Pentecost, setting their hearts on fire with the desire to witness to others and giving birth to the church, so God would breathe his Spirit upon the children of Israel, and the dead would arise to live again… a vast multitude living for God.
A vast multitude, living for God. Notice that God does not single out one set of bones and raise one person to do this. No. God raises an army to march… a multitude to live for Christ and his kingdom. No one would have to step out in isolation. All of the children of God would be raised together… for there is strength… and encouragement… and support… and revival… in the fellowship of Christian believers. We are not alone. We have God and the power of the Holy Spirit… and we have each other. D.L. Moody once called on a leading citizen in Chicago who had missed Sunday services for several weeks. They were seated in the man's parlor. It was winter and coal was burning in the fireplace. The man objected to Rev. Moody’s invitation to return to Christian fellowship in the church, saying that he could be just as good a Christian outside the church as in it. Moody said nothing, but he stepped to the fireplace, took the tongs, picked a blazing coal from the fire and set it off by itself. In silence, the two watched the coal smolder and go out. The man returned to church the following Sunday.
Yes, change is difficult… and the future is not easy to predict… but that is not a reason to resist it… or avoid it. A 146-year-old church can thrive and grow, if the Spirit of God is moving in its midst. God is calling us into a future of hope… right here in Stephenville… just as he called the exiles in Babylon… just as he called the disciples in Jerusalem. Christ has promised to lead his church… and to be with us as we go forward. There is no reason for us to bury our head in the sand… to stand around gossiping about what others are doing… or to drag our feet. We are called to lead God’s people … and to minister in Christ’s name right here… right now… in ways that might challenge the way that we have always done it. But let us move forward with confidence… knowing that God is moving in our midst and breathing his Holy Spirit into each step we take… so that we can win others to this vision of life in him… together. Amen.
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-21