O NCE AGAIN WE DIP INTO our Lent in a Bag to see what visual helps with today’s sermon. Not much left in the bag after an apple, flip flops, water, and last week’s heart-shaped glasses have been taken out. Today is a skeleton. A lifeless collection of bones. With the foot bone connected to the leg bone and the leg bone connected to the knee bone . . . .

If you listened to the reading as Teresa read from Ezekiel, you probably have a pretty good idea of the connection between this skeleton and the sermon. But what is this vision of dry bones all about?

 † † † 

EZEKIEL’S VISION DATES to the period of Israel’s history known as the Babylonian Exile. In 586 BCE, Jerusalem rebelled against the much-more-powerful Babylonians. The Babylonians tore down the city and Solomon’s temple and shipped off Judean leaders. Ezekiel was among those exiles. For the Jews forced to live in Babylon, the future seemed a black hole from which they’d never emerge. A century and a half earlier, many citizens of Judah’s sister kingdom, Israel, had been similarly deported. They lost their identity and had faded into history — the so-called lost tribes of Israel.

It was the low point, the worst time in Judah’s history. The Babylonians wiped out the total Israelite army. It was no contest. The Babylonians were the strongest nation around. Israel was a dinky, little nation. In 586 BCE, all the young Israelite warriors were killed. The bodies were not buried but left in the dry desert sun to rot. White, lifeless bones of long-dead young men.

The temple was destroyed. The capital city was destroyed. The people were in total poverty. Everybody was hungry or on the edge of starvation, so much so that I even hate to tell you this but it is part of the story. The people were so hungry that mothers boiled their own children for food.

The book of Lamentations says, “All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive.” (1:11). With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food. (4:10).”

 † † † 

THE EXILE WAS MORE THAN A CRISIS of physical suffering. It also was a crisis of faith. The key symbol of Judean faith was Jerusalem and its temple. Many exiled Judeans assumed that their deity had been defeated by a stronger deity from Babylon. The people wondered if the LORD was truly lord and truly faithful. These exiles expressed a sense of despair, defeat and abandonment.

Toward the end of today’s reading, we hear the words of lament of the deported people: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely” (v. 11). The reference to “bones” refers to a person’s deepest self, or, in the case of “our bones,” a way for the community to refer to its most essential self.

Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones is a response to the situation of God’s people — to their sense of hopelessness, to their situation of being cut off from their land, their temple and — they think! — from their God. The people use a common expression of their helplessness and hopelessness. They say, “Our bones are dried up.” So Ezekiel shows them a vision of exactly that: dry bones.

Ezekiel’s vision is not all doom and gloom. It is not merely a metaphor for where the people are — depressed, despised, dusty, dry. This vision depicts a resurrection in this “valley of dried bones.” We need to be careful to understand this is not a reference to a future resurrection from the dead. God asks, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel replies, “If anyone knows the answer to that question, God, it is you. I have no idea.”

God commissions Ezekiel to prophesy to these dead, dry bones. The message: they will be pieced together again, supplied with sinew, muscle tissue and skin, and inspired to live again. God will breathe life into them as he breathed life into the first lump of clay.

 † † † 

ON THIS FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT, we confess that we live as though we are without hope. The Ezekiel text challenges us — will we remain as dry, hopeless bones, or will we respond to the breath of God blowing on us and come alive with hope?

Just as the dry bones come together and come back to life, God’s people can rise from bad situations to live again. Do we believe that for the church? Do we believe that for ourselves? Do you believe that, for your dry, dusty, lifeless life, God can bring you breath/spirit?

Are our lives so bad, so terrible, so worthless, so ordinary, so dry and scattered that we are beyond the hope of God putting our lives back together? Are we beyond hope that God can breathe into us life?

On the face of it, the image of a valley full of dried bones offers little hope. The God of the Bible, however, is not obstructed by obstacles. The God, our God, overcomes impediments as large as death.

 † † † 

THE POWER THAT RESTORES and preserves remnant Israel, the power that frees slaves, and the power that raises Lazarus is the power of God’s unwavering love and determination to give life. Back then and now. To those people, to us. My life and yours.

In difficult times, may we march in the certainty that God walks through them with us. God waits on the other side of trial to give us a fresh breath of life. When Israel was at the very bottom, when they were most depressed, most alone, when they were most dry — just dry bones bleached by the desert sun — they heard the Word of the LORD.

“Dem bones gonna walk around.”

The nation of Israel would come back to life again. And so can you.

And the LORD God said softly and then louder, with all the gusto of God:

“Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around.
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around,
dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around.
Now YOU hear the Word of the LORD.”

— Keith Cardwell