“Thy Strong Word”1

May 31, 2009
Festival of Pentecost

Ezekiel 37:1–14
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”

 

   Cemeteries are not fun places. Nowhere is God’s judgment against sin more evident than at the grave. Yes, there we see very clearly that “the wages of sin is death.”2 The cemetery is full of people who were originally designed by God to live forever but whose lives were cut short due to their sinful depravity. Such is our situation as well. And when we stand before the headstone of someone we desperately loved, we know that we will never see him or her again this side of heaven. No, cemeteries are not fun.

   Imagine, then, how the prophet Ezekiel must have felt when the Lord, in a vision, brought him to a cemetery full of bones. . . . not gravestones in a neatly manicured cemetery but bones in a mass burial pit! God wanted Ezekiel to see these bones up close and personal (as the media likes to say it). Hence, the prophet says, “[The Spirit of the Lord] led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.”3 Scavengers had long since come and feasted on the dead flesh. All that remained were skeletons. What God wants Ezekiel and us to see is that these bones have absolutely no life in them.

   Whose bones are they? They belong to the children of Israel, for God says to Ezekiel, “These bones are the whole house of Israel.”4 God means that Israel, as a nation, is dead. She is spiritually dead. She has no life in her. To be sure, she died gradually. For many years, she had been unfaithful to the LORD. He had warned her that, if she didn’t repent of her harlotry and turn her heart to him, he was going to punish her. He would punish her by allowing a pagan nation to conquer her.5 But she turned a deaf ear and refused to hear. So it was, then, that in 586 B.C., God kept his promise. The Babylonian army crushed Jerusalem. Solomon’s Temple, the epicenter of Jewish worship was reduced to ashes.

   To be defeated, wasted, and ruined was bad enough. But that wasn’t the half of it. In three successive waves, the people were deported to Babylon (in today’s Iraq). Among the captives were Ezekiel, Daniel, and the woman who would become Queen Esther.6 King Nebuchadnezzar was in no mood to let God’s people go back to their homeland. He held them in strict captivity for seventy years. That’s a whole lifetime!

   Sadness filled the hearts of the Israelites. They were saying to one another, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.”7 The chances that their situation would change were about the same as the chance that dead, dry, and lifeless bones would take on flesh and blood and somehow come to life. Get real! They knew that their captivity was God’s punishment for their idolatry. They knew they would never arise from their defeat. They knew that their situation was beyond hope!

   But God is about to bring help for their hopelessness. God takes Ezekiel to the boneyard and says to him, “Son of man, can these bones live?”8 The prophet says, “O Lord GOD, You know.”9 So God says to him, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’”10

   To prophesy, here, does not mean to predict the future. It means to speak what God commands.11 Prophesying occurs when God’s prophet speaks God’s words by God’s command. Pastors are to prophesy. So is Ezekiel. So then Ezekiel is commanded to preach God’s inspired words to a congregation of dead bones.

   God commanded him to prophesy (or to speak) to the dead bones twice. Ezekiel reports what happened when he spoke the first time. He says, “So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them.12

   Ezekiel must have been thunderstruck. God’s words spoken by his lips caused bare skeletons to take on muscles, tendons, ligaments, and human flesh. Yet, for all of this, they were only corpses. So God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy once again. God says to his prophet,

Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, “Thus says the Lord GOD,13 Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”14

The prophet says, “So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.”15

   Behold the power of God’s strong Word! The same strong word that spoke at creation, saying “Let there be light!”16 was operative here. The same God who breathed the breath of life into Adam at creation, breathed life into these corpses and these once dead bones. What a mighty power God’s word is!

   But here in the valley of dry bones, God did not speak the words that made the dry bones spring to life. Ezekiel did. Ezekiel’s lips spoke God’s enlivening words. Yes, God used the prophet’s mouth to speak his message. Please understand the point: God’s word spoken by God’s appointed spokesman carries with it God’s own authority and power. That is why it has always seemed essential to the Church that the Lord’s authorized spokesmen be called by God for his appointed task, whether as a prophet, an apostle, or a pastor. Prophets and apostles had to be directly called by God himself. Pastors receive their calls from God through the agency of the local congregation (or the church at large).

   But what did it all mean? By raising up the dry bones and giving them life, God was telling his people that, one day, he would raise them up and let them return to Israel. Yes, one day, despite their sin and rebellion, God would let his people to return to their homeland! Indeed, he says to them through Ezekiel lips, “Behold, I will … raise you … O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel.”17

   God promised Israel that they would return to their homeland. And they did! God promises us a far greater homeland, viz., heaven. And he tells us how to get there. He says, “I will give spiritual life, indeed, eternal life, to everyone who trusts in my Son’s saving work, specifically, in his sinless life and sin–atoning death.” This is his promise. And God always keeps his promises!

   This promise of eternal life is good news, for we were born dead. Actually, at the moment of our conception, God gave us form and being, but not spiritual life. We were, if you will, among the ranks of the living dead. We had absolutely no spiritual power or goodness to make ourselves right with God. Indeed, we were spiritually as dead as the dry bones. God says that we were “dead in our trespasses and sins,”18 and that “we were by nature children of wrath.”19 And our old, sinful nature still rises up within us and provokes us to despise what God commands and to love what he forbids. We can, too often, find ourselves bringing forth the deeds of death. Many say that they will repent later, but later may be too late.

   But God can and does make us spiritually alive.20 When we were baptized, the Holy Spirit breathed the breath of life into our dead, dry souls. He caused us to be reborn and washed away all of our sins.21 At our baptisms, we were clothed with the righteousness of Christ. And we still are covered with his righteousness today, for St. Paul says, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”22

   God also gives the gift of spiritual rebirth in Christ by means of his inscripturated Word. St. Paul says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.”23 He also says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”24 Jesus also says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”25

   Until the day of Pentecost, the Word of God, (and, therefore, the word of life and salvation) was given only to the Jews. But on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, through the mouths of the apostles, preached the word of salvation to the assembled nations. The Gospel would have never reached our ears were it not for the festival we celebrate today. Indeed, God’s Word is Spirit and life.

   God has given us still another gift. He gives it to sustain and strengthen our faith. Holy Communion is that gift. Through the words of institution, we hear Jesus saying to us, “Take eat; this is my body. Take drink, this is my blood of the new testament given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sin.”26 When we arise from his table, we arise forgiven!

   Baptism, God’s Word, and the Lord’s Supper: There are no greater gifts this side of heaven.

   May God grant this to you and me for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Endnotes

1        Note about capitalization of Trinitarian pronouns. In my written sermons, I usually do not capitalize pronouns referring to God. I believe, teach, and confess that there are three divine persons in one divine essence. I choose not to capitalize them for two reasons: (1) The original Greek and Hebrew texts are written in (what we in English would call) capital letters. Thus the original texts of Scripture do not make distinctions of capitalized personal pronouns with reference to God; and (2) Almost all English translations with the exception of the NASB (1977 and 1995), the NIV (1973, 1984), the NKJV (1982), and the HCSB (1999, 2004) do not capitalize pronouns referring to the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. Thus the capitalization of divine pronouns is a rather modern practice. But when translators capitalize a personal pronoun they must interpret whether they think a pronoun is a reference to one of the divine Persons. Sometimes this is a difficult task. It is not the job of translations to interpret; they should only translate and leave the references to divine pronouns uncapitalized so the reader will have to determine from context whether or not the pronoun’s referent is to one of the three, divine Persons. It is worth noting that two very good translations do not capitalize, namely, the KJV and the ESV. I have no objection if translations choose to capitalize but place a footnote saying that the original does not capitalize the particular pronoun.

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