Advent 2 (NL)
December 10, 2017
Ezekiel 37:1-14
I got some
positive feedback last week about offering you some context before the reading
of the lesson, so that you have a sense of where it sits in the arch of the
biblical narrative. So once again, I’d like to offer you some context for our
reading.
Ezekiel was
a prophet during the period of the Babylonian exile – similar time to Daniel,
from whom we heard last week. The Babylonian exile happened in a couple waves:
the first wave of deportations happened in 597 BC. This sent primarily leaders
and educated elites out of Jerusalem and into Babylon. Ezekiel, who was a
priest in Jerusalem, was among those first deported. He begins his career as a
prophet during this time, prophesying a lot of doom and gloom, judgment against
Israel and Judah, especially leaders in Southern Kingdom. But then about 10
years later, Ezekiel learns of the fall of Jerusalem. This is devastating news
for him and for the other exiles, because Jerusalem was more than a beloved
city. It was the very center of their worship life, the only place to properly
worship the one true God. With the destruction of that city and the Temple, the
people had some very serious religious and spiritual concerns. And so at that
point, Ezekiel’s prophecies turn away from judgment, and more toward hope and
restoration. Today’s reading, the Valley of Dry Bones, is probably his best-known
prophecy, and it is one of immense hope.
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| Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones in St. Nicolas Church, Great Britten http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55163 |
Last week I
also mentioned the literary style of our story from Daniel. This reading from
Ezekiel, we should understand, is a vision, not a literal event. Many of
Ezekiel’s prophesies are visions, allegories, or otherwise symbolic. That
should be pretty obvious, but – just making sure!
Okay, here’s the story.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
One of my family’s many Advent
traditions growing up was to light the Advent wreath at dinner, and sing this
hauntingly beautiful Advent hymn before we prayed. I have been singing it since
before I can remember, and those words came out of my mouth before I had any clue
what they meant or the story behind them. I was a teenager or young adult
before I really thought about what they meant. It suddenly occurred to me, “Why
are we singing ‘Rejoice’? This sounds sad. I don’t know what all those words
refer to, but I know mourning isn’t good, and lonely is definitely not good,
and captive sounds pretty bad, too. Rejoice?”
Now I
recognize this as a story very familiar to me – both because I know better the
biblical story, and because it is a story I see in my own life, metaphorically
speaking. That is, it is a story in which sadness and despair find their hope
in looking toward the salvation that is to come.
The biblical story is a long
narrative – the whole Bible, really – but is well captured in today’s reading.
Here are a people, the Israelites, who are captive
to strange rulers and a strange way of life, who are lonely in exile, and mourning
the loss of their homes and all that they know and love. Without the Temple,
and with Jerusalem destroyed, they were riddled with questions like, “Does God
even care about us anymore? Can we reach God from all the way in Babylon, and
can God reach us – and does God even want to?”
And so they cry out, “O God-with-us,
Emmanuel, come! Come be God-with-us!” Do something to get us out of here! Or in
the words of those dry bones, “Our bones are dried up. Our hope is lost, and we
are cut off completely.” Come here and do
something, O Emmanuel!
Of course, this carol wasn’t written
yet in the 6th century Before Christ, but Ezekiel’s vision of the
Valley of Dry Bones is in its own way an answer to that cry. It starts off like
the verse of the hymn – lonely, captive, mourning. Those bones are dry, so dry. It is truly a dire situation, in
which hope is completely lost. As Ezekiel takes us along for the ride, looking
around and around that valley full of dry bones, our hearts, too, plead: O Come, Emmanuel! Do something to release
Israel, captive to this death and hopelessness. They mourn in lonely exile
here!
But then… the rattling. At God’s
Word, those bones start to shake, and move. They come together, bone to bone.
Sinews form, and skin – it is remarkable! Yet for all that, they are still a
valley of cadavers – there is no life in them. That doesn’t come until… what?
What brings life? Ahh, the breath! The very breath of God! Just as God once
breathed into the nostrils of a mud-made Adam and brought him to life, so the
Spirit of the Lord comes into the army of cadavers, once a valley of very dry
bones, now rejuvenated, transformed, indeed, resurrected, into a vast
multitude. Hope is restored and life is once again a possibility. With God, life is always on the horizon.
I said I see this story even in my
own life. There are several ways, but this week, I’m thinking about my Isaac,
who celebrated this week his first birthday. Isaac, I’ll confess, was not a
part of my plan – at least not yet. I had a 6 month old and was not ready for
another baby, I was tired, and I was not especially pleased to be pregnant
again. It didn’t help that the time I was pregnant with him was an emotionally
trying time for me for other reasons. Now, of course, I couldn’t be happier
that he is ours! But then, I didn’t really know what to do with this reality.
Since his birthday was this week, I
was thinking a lot about that night I spent laboring him into the world. I had
just sung in two remarkable and demanding concerts with my choir, pieces so
difficult that I had spent hours hammering them into my head. So it was no
surprise, I guess, when I felt that first serious contraction in the darkness
just before midnight, that a refrain from that concert popped into my head. It
was in Latin, so I didn’t think much about the meaning, but the rhythm of the
words was what echoed through my head as I rocked and breathed my way through
the pain. That’s what you quickly figure out in labor – when the pain starts,
breathe deeply. Pain must always be accompanied by breath, the deeper the
better. Breath is what makes it possible to get through the pain.
Later, I looked up the Latin, and discovered
that the refrain meant this: “Know ye that the Lord is God: he made us and not
we ourselves.” And so it was on
that refrain, and that breath, that my Isaac
made his speedy appearance, just as the sun was rising, and took his own first
breath of air before being placed in my arms. And there, with his first breath
– a new life began, and my heart reached a new depth of love.
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| New love |
When the pain starts – start
breathing deeply. That is one lesson we see in Ezekiel. When the hopelessness
seems to overwhelm – breathe in deeply the breath of God. When your cry is only
of lament – breathe deeply. When you mourn in lonely exile, waiting for release
– breathe deeply. Then we shall know that the Lord is God, that God made us,
and that God has the power to remake us, to enliven us again, to transform our
dry old bones into newness of life.
Where does your story meet this
biblical story? Perhaps you feel your bones are dead and dry far beyond life.
Maybe the demands on you and your time and energy are so great that you fall
into bed each night bone tired. Or you watch the news and feel the energy and
hope drain from your heart. Maybe the clutter in your life – your home, your
schedule, your thoughts – leave little room for self-care, or for prayer. Or
you look at your finances and wonder how you can possibly crawl out from under
this much debt? As the world around us rejoices with Christmas cheer, maybe you
find yourself feeling sadder than ever, as you grieve the losses of your life,
the people you wish were still here, the time of life now gone by. Are there so
many demands pulling you this way and that, that you find it impossible to find
the time to nourish your spiritual life?
Whatever place in your life feels dry
and hopeless… what would it take to once again experience life there? In what
area of your life do you need the breath of God to restore, renew, or resurrect
you? Where do you crave a transformation from death and hopelessness, into
life?
For me, I experience dryness in the
search for peace – peace in my life, peace in the world, peace in my heart. And
so the words of our presiding bishop Elizabeth Eaton, in the most recent issue
of Living Lutheran, our ELCA
publication, really resonated with me. She writes: “Here we are in Advent. This
season doesn’t exist in secular culture, where everything is barreling toward
Christmas. No time to wait, no time to notice, no time to be present. Not this.
Not now. All of a sudden we will find ourselves on the day after Christmas not
knowing how we got there. Advent is a holy season, a season that bids us to be
present, to be still. So much is evoked in this season – hope, longing, the
bittersweet awareness that the world is beautiful and broken. Consider all of
these things. Sit with them. Pray with them. Be aware of this time of great
promise that comes … when night is longest.”
What beautiful and timely advice. It
is just what I need at this time to remind me to breathe in that life-renewing,
restorative breath of God. It is just what I need to remember that although we wait
in this season for the Prince of Peace to come, we also already have the gift
of that Spirit of peace. It is a gift that has been given to God’s people from
the beginning of time – first moving over the chaotic waters of creation, then
blown into Adam’s nostrils, then continually
active throughout time, even to
enlivening a valley full of very dead, very dry bones.
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| Untitled Pentecost by John Brokenshire http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55229 |
And so let this be an Advent gift
also to us today. In a moment, we will have an opportunity to breathe in the
breath of God in whatever way best suits you. If you’re anything like me, time
for quietly sitting and breathing deeply can be hard to come by. So, following
the sermon, you are invited to breathe in the life-giving breathe of God by meditating on images, or quietly sitting
and praying, or coloring this page. Maybe if your brain is as busy as mine,
it would be useful for you to have a mantra. One of my favorites is simply to
breathe in and think, “Breath of God,” and breathe out and pray, “Breathe in
me.” Or the one Bishop Eaton suggested in the piece I just quoted is, “Just
this. Just now.” Maybe you will consider offering a particular prayer you have
for this day and this time – if so, write it and include it in this basket, and
we will pray it during the prayers of intercession.
Now, I know, maybe this may feel
silly to you. It is different than what we usually do, and maybe you feel
embarrassed. But Advent is all about anticipating the greatest disruption to
the “way we’ve always done things” that the world has ever known. Imagine – God
becoming human! I’m sure that wasn’t comfortable, either. So I hope you will
engage in this few minutes in whatever way you are able, and that you will find
in it that God’s breath restores some of the dryness in your spirit, and/or
that it will encourage you to bring that practice home. May we all experience
the life-restoring breath of God.
Let us pray… Breath of God, as you breathed into those very dry bones and brought
them to life, breathe into us today. As you restored the hope of a lonely, mourning
people in exile, restore our hope today. As you promised to bring your peace to
all the earth, bring your peace to us today. In the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Following meditative time (from Dag
Hammarskjold):
Thou who art over us,
Thou who art one of us,
Thou who art, Also within us.
May all see Thee – in me also,
May I prepare the way for Thee.
May I thank Thee for all that shall to my lot,
May I also not forget the needs of others.
Keep me in Thy love
As Thou wouldst that all should be kept in mine.
May everything in this my being be directed to Thy glory
And may I never despair.
For I am under Thy hand, And in Thee is all power and
goodness.
Give me a pure heart that I may see Thee,
A humble heart that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith that I may abide
in Thee. Amen.
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