What fantastic stories and what remarkable foreshadowing of the excitement to come in two weeks.  And it is a description of what we live with every day. Death and life. For us it is probably not a valley of dry lifeless bones or a friend four days dead in the grave. But it might be a decaying neighborhood, a friendship that seems to have lost meaning, loss of a life dream, living with chronic illness or even an actual death.

Does it really, can it really, happen that there is miraculously renewed life out of hopeless death?

Some years ago I learned from my friend, Laura Brenneman, that the stories we tell, the metaphors we use, help us to frame our approach to life. Laura says that it is especially important to pay attention to the stories we tell when we are in situations of conflict. It is good to choose our metaphors carefully so that our imaginations are widened and stretched, so we are open to something new. We see that it is not all up to us as individuals. There are possibilities we can hardly dream of.

And this is what Ezekiel has – a dream, a vision.  He is taken by God to look at the bones in a desolate valley. These bones, thousands of bones, have not been given a proper burial. Killed in battle or just discarded, these bodies are so disrespected, so cast aside that they are left to to be picked clean by the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. No respect for life and no respect for death. Where can the hope be in that?

God makes Ezekiel walk among the bones, really look at them, see their desolation. Then God asks “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel is unwilling to venture a guess; he is not ready to say no to God but neither is he willing to give what seems an impossible yes. He hedges with – “Oh God, you know.”

Without hesitation, God begins giving instructions. It is not simply that Ezekiel is to talk to these old bones; Ezekiel is to prophesy in the name of YHWH. Ezekiel is to speak for God.

In his vision, Ezekiel hears God say that what looks dead can come to life. This is very bleak, like Ezekiel’s life. He knows  hopelessness and death. He is living in exile. Ezekiel knows the desperation of Israel’s best and brightest being taken from their lands and made to live in enemy territory. He has watched as the people have forsaken their God, abandoned their traditions, and given up hope.

These bones that Ezekiel sees have practically been reclaimed by the earth but God says Ezekiel should call them back to life. Ezekiel may not believe it is possible for these bones to live, but commanded by God, Ezekiel speaks it anyway. And almost before he can finish speaking, there is a response: bones rattling and assembling themselves into skeletons, into frameworks for life. Then the joints and ligaments appear, then the skin. Suddenly these are real bodies, coming together out of a heap of death.

But – they are not alive. These bones with sinew and flesh are like the body of Adam, adamah in Hebrew, created from the earth. And just like in Genesis 2 when the body is of the earth, it has no life – until the breath of God enters it.

For these dry bones, it is not only the breath of God that enlivens; it is the winds from the four corners of the earth. It is not just the local spirit of God, it is the spirit/breath/wind of God from across all the land that will enliven and renew life.

The winds blow, the Spirit does her work and the bodies are alive again, standing upright – a multitude of new life. Ezekiel and God have been the only living things in that valley and now all around are living, breathing bodies. They are not yet removed from that valley of death but they are living once again.

And then comes God’s word that makes Ezekiel take a deep breath himself. “Mere mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel.” God has heard the complaints of these bones – just as God heard the complaints of the people when they were enslaved in Egypt. God will open the graves – just as the waters of the Reed Sea were parted, and the people will know that YHWH is God, that this God of Israel is sovereign over all. This God is not tied to particular land, or even to particular people. YHWH God calls the winds from all lands to enliven and renew.

Though they remain in the valley now, the people of Israel will rise up and return to their own land with the help of God. God will re-patriate them to their own land, breathing and enlivened by the Spirit of God. No longer is this just a dream for Ezekiel. This is a prophesy from beyond, a vision to share.

Perhaps in comparison to a whole people being brought to life, the story of one man, Lazarus, coming back to life, is anti-climactic. Then again, all those dry bones that became living breathing people are just a vision. Lazarus is a real person, a real friend of Jesus, with sisters Mary and Martha, and friends that have been mourning for four days.

Lazarus’ sisters are not pleased with Jesus. They know Jesus well, he is a family friend. They already know how amazing Jesus is. They are already convinced that Jesus could have healed Lazarus – if he would have gotten there before Lazarus died. All this weeping and mourning could have been prevented.

Jesus, or perhaps it is the writer of John, decides to use this conversation with Martha as a teachable moment. (It has always seemed slightly cruel to me that Jesus would choose this time, when Martha is grieving for her brother, to be the teaching rabbi. Maybe it is just a literary and theological choice the writer made?)

In any case, through this conversation, we are helped to understand that Jesus is intimately connected to God, to the I AM. We remember that Moses first met the I AM as he was being prepared to lead the people out of slavery. Ezekiel hears “I AM YHWH” as he receives the vision of death to life.  And here we have Jesus proclaiming to Martha “I AM the resurrection, I AM life.” Jesus is aligning himself with this powerful living and re-enlivening God that appears throughout the Jewish scriptures.

But after being confronted by the second sister, Mary, about his being late, about not coming when he was summoned, Jesus takes notice of the grief. He may even see that it is not just Martha and Mary who are grieving, there is a whole group of mourners trailing them. Jesus does not apologize for arriving late but he does cry with them. He does, after all, love Lazarus like a brother, disciple, friend.

He instructs the mourners to remove the stone from the tomb. The people do so with reluctance because they know after four days they will smell the stench of death. After this Jesus prays, he prays not because he needs to but because it is another chance to clarify that he is working with God. 

Then Jesus does as God does in Genesis 1, in the speaking there is life. (“Let us make humankind in our image.”) Jesus speaks Lazarus into life. After all, in the gospel of John, Jesus is the Word, the Word made flesh. Jesus calls – “Lazarus, come out.”

And here comes Lazarus, walking awkwardly out of the tomb wrapped in bandages, his face covered. His illness didn’t require these bandages; it was the custom to wrap the body so that after a year in the tomb, when the flesh had gone, the tomb could be opened, the bones could be easily gathered and buried properly in an ossuary. (Clearly, this had not been done in the vision that Ezekiel had.)

Jesus commands the many mourners to release Lazarus from the bindings. We aren’t told whether they run to help him in excitement or if they move slowly, sniffing for death.

But seeing Lazarus alive after he was dead, hearing Jesus connect himself with I AM, this helps many of the traditional religious people to understand Jesus in a new way. They believe, they put their faith in him.

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These are ancient, fantastical stories – and yet they may describe what we know. Can they become our stories, helpful metaphors, in times of conflict or even death? Might these stories open up new ways of thinking and acting?

We don’t have to look too far down the road to find examples of where this vision of Ezekiel might have relevance. What might Ezekiel’s vision sound like to Metropolitan Baptist Church, a congregation featured on the front page of the Post on Friday? Founded by freed slaves 150 years ago, Metropolitan has been one of the biggest, sought out congregations in the area for decades. Political appointees and famous people are members. It is a church with a name – or it was.

The congregation was poised to move from the District to Prince Georges County, where many of their members had moved. They had plans to build a huge new church building. Then the financial crisis hit, they could no longer get loans and the work stopped. Now the dreamed of glorious “tabernacle” stands partially erected, the bones of the structure vandalized and stripped – while the congregation has lost 70% of their 7000 members and meets in a school building in the District.

It’s a complicated situation – financially, in terms of leadership transition (the pastor of 40 years resigned for serious health reasons) not to mention congregational and spiritual issues. Can holy breath enliven and renew the congregation? “Can these bones live? O God, you know.” It seems presumptuous to prophesy to them. But can we at least pray for them?

Closer to home – ecclesially if not geographically, what does the vision of Ezekiel sound like to those of us in Mennonite Church USA? I have heard people wonder if the institution can survive, given the disagreements about sexuality, leadership, polity and church documents. Can new life really be breathed into the doctrinal bones left strewn on the battlefield?

Here at Hyattsville Mennonite we have been called prophets by some. I am more than hesitant to take on that mantle for myself or for this congregation. But what might it look like these days to speak words of hope, instead of demise? Might we dare to believe that new life is possible even when people are fleeing and fearful? “Can these bones live? O God, you know.”

It is one thing for the prophet, whoever s/he might be, to stand back, conversing with God and then to speak a word of hope. But it is another, more difficult thing altogether, to be called like Lazarus’ friends to step forward and unbind one who is stepping into new life.

It is risky business to step toward one who may still reek of death. It is not easy to reach out a hand that knows only life and touch one who has been dead long enough that they don’t look quite right, don’t smell quite right. And yet Lazarus, spoken into life by Jesus, needs help to walk. He needs companions to unbind him and help him adjust to new life, for surely the world of the living takes some time to adjust to.

What would it look like to reach out to “returning citizens,” people recently released from prison?  Or injured vets who know death all too well, who have lived in the valley of death? Or someone struggling with chronic mental illness or domestic violence? Are we willing to get the smell of death on our hands, in order to walk with someone into life?

But let us not imagine that the “Lazarus metaphor” is some exotic condition far removed from us. Each of us has places in our own lives where we need to ask others for help unwrapping that death cloth so we can walk more freely. Is our longing for new life strong enough that we are willing to take the first step out of the tomb so that others can then step toward us? Can we take the risk to ask for a hand and then receive it?

As we prepare ourselves for hearing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, let us remember that this is our story too. New and renewed life is not just for dry bones, Lazarus and Jesus. New life is possible for each of us, when we open our hearts and hands, when we receive the breath of the Spirit.