A sermon based on John 14. 23-29 & Ezekiel 37. 1-14. Jesus in our Gospel reading today challenges us in saying that we demonstrate our love for him by keeping his word, in other words by listening and putting into practice, by keeping his commands obediently. And on the surface that seems an odd, even manipulative perspective on love. You can see how such a view could be abused. If you love me do this, do that, enslave yourself to me. But that’s not what Jesus is getting at here. Let’s take a step back and look at love. Love is the giving of yourself to the other, of putting them and their needs before your own. And it’s a reciprocal thing. Because love is also about trust, to truly love, we need to be able to trust the other. And we develop that trust by seeing the other giving of themselves for us, laying down their lives for us. And we see that in Jesus, we see that in the incarnation, his leaving of the perfection of heaven to join us in the dirt and mess of our world. We see that upon the cross as he bears our guilt and sin and shame, so that we need bear it no more. We look to him and see perfect love, and that perfect love allows us to trust him, and in trusting him, that he longs for our good, we find the will to obey, hesitantly, falteringly, as imperfect people we are, but in loving him, we find ourselves obeying him. But if we flick back to our Old Testament passage, we find what happens to a people who do not obey, who do not love the Lord God, who rebel, and go off their own way. We find ourselves in a valley of bones, very dry bones, and these bones are the bones of the people of Israel. This is happening in a vision, these aren’t the literal bones of the people, but nevertheless it’s the reality in which the people are living. They’re in exile from the land God had given them, they’re scattered amidst the conquering nation, all because of their rebellion, through their own actions and disobedience. They’d fallen into the assumption that to be loved by God was to be able to get away with whatever they wished, rather than heeding his words, which Jesus reiterates today, that to love is to obey. And they’re now in dire straits, the future seems bleak and hopeless, our very bones are dried up they say, we’re cut off from everything that made us who we are, our hope is gone. There are times in our lives when we can identify with those feelings of Israel. When the future seems bleak, all hope is gone. Times when we feel like we’ve been stripped of all that made us who we are. Times when our very bones are dried up, when it feels like our very being is wasting away. Those times are awful and dire, and sometimes it’s through no fault of our own, and that’s still terrible, but sometimes we know why it’s happened, the finger points directly back at us. The reason for our mess is our own actions, our own words, our own deliberate failings. And that feels so much worse, because with it there comes that self-loathing. Where is God in all of that? When it feels like he’s forgotten us, and our hope is gone? Or we’ve turned from him and his ways and it feels like he’s punishing us, and our bones are dried up? Where is he in all of that. Is there a way back? What we find in that valley of dry bones, and not just dry bones, very dry bones, is that exact question. Can these bones live? Is there a future? And Ezekiel isn’t bold enough to say yes, but he knows God well enough to say, ‘you know Lord, you know what is possible’. And into this helpless, hopeless situation, dry bones scattered across a valley, God speaks. And God doesn’t just speak, he invites Ezekiel to speak. God speaks to Ezekiel, and in obedience Ezekiel speaks as he is told, and those bones come back to life, drawn back together, sinews and flesh and muscle and skin. Organs and arteries and nerves and hair. This valley that was hopeless, is now filled with hope, those bones are now people. And yet all is not well yet. Because things are looking much better, the valley is no longer filled with bones, but now, for want of a better word, it’s filled with corpses. So God speaks again and Ezekiel speaks, and, in words that echo Genesis and our creation, breath enters them and they come alive. In our brokenness, in our helplessness, we are never without hope. Even in the darkest time, even in the bleakest days. Even when the whole mess is our own fault, we are never without hope. We worship the God who takes valleys of dried up bones, and forms and army of living breathing people. There is no place we can find ourselves, that he cannot act, cannot rescue, cannot intervene. There often isn’t a way back to how things were, but there is always hope for the future. For Israel their future would never look like their past. Never again would they be an independent Kingdom, ruled over by a successor to David’s line. And yet despite the future not looking like the past, all of that led to the birth of Jesus, God still worked all of it, including their rebellion, for good. Those bones coming to life may not look like they did before, but God is still at work, there is still firm hope and true life. Let’s circle back to our passage one last time. Notice how God works in that situation, in that valley, he doesn’t intervene directly, he speaks to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel speaks God’s words and hope comes, life comes. Sometimes God intervenes directly and miraculously, but more often than not he works through our brothers and sisters to minister to us, to bless us, to restore our hope, to bring us healing. Sometimes God will nudge us to do that for one another, give us the words or put someone on our heart, pray for this person, go chat with this person, ask them about this. At other times we’ll do it unknowingly, blissfully ignorant of how God is at work through us to meet with someone else. God’s rather wonderful like that, he see’s the full picture, we don’t always need to. In Eastertide we celebrate Christ’s resurrection and the hope we have in him. Today we hear a different story of resurrection, not of God dead three days, but of a people long dead, long gone. And yet God speaks, and resurrection comes. Whether this morning your hope is dried up, your very being wasting away and the future seems bleak through no fault of your own. Or whether you’ve run from God in rebellion in the opposite direction to where Jesus’ words would have led you, disobeyed at every turn and are wondering if there’s a way back, whether there is a future or if all hope is gone. God is there, even in the darkest times, the bleakest valley, the most helpless situations. And he longs to meet with us, to bring us hope, to bring us back to life, to breath his Spirit upon us afresh. If that’s you today I’d love to pray with you, please get in touch. And if that’s not you today, as we meet over coffee, as we chat with one another during the week, may we be sensitive to God’s leading, open to his call, may we offer words of life and hope, speak into one another’s lives the resurrection hope that we have. For our world often feels without hope, without future, dried up. May we with Ezekiel, offer the hope that we have in Christ. Amen.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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