Can these bones live? (A sermon for the last Sunday in Lent)

 

Sermon Title: Can These Bones Live?
Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Occasion: Fifth Sunday in Lent

All of us have some stuff in our life that’s not working right. All of us have something in our life that isn't coming together like it should. Welsh preacher Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said most of our problems in life happen because we spend too much time listening to ourselves and not enough time talking to ourselves. God said, «Ezekiel, do you see these bones? They look dry, don’t they»? «Yes, Lord, they’re dry». «They look dead, don’t they»? «Yes, Lord, they look dead». «They’re decomposing, aren’t they»? «Yes, Lord, they are».

«Can they live again»? Now the question here is not if God can make dry bones live again. The question is…Can these dead bones live again? Most of us believe that God can do big things. I think we're just not always sure he will do big things through somebody as small as us. It’s not God we doubt most of the time. It’s these bones. It’s this. Not that, but this. The Lord said, «Can they live again»? Ezekiel said, «Only you know, Lord». And so God  said, «I want to use you to speak life into something that seems to be dead».

Is this a vision, or a dream? Ezekiel says that the hand of the Lord carried him away and set him down in the middle of a valley. And it was a valley filled with bones. Who were the bones, before we go any further.

These were not recently fallen soldiers. These bones had been lying there a long time. The flesh was gone. The sinew was gone. The hope was gone. What remained was the evidence of a catastrophe long past.

Ezekiel walks through the valley.

Imagine the sound of it. The crunch of bone underfoot. Skulls staring upward from the dust.

This valley is the graveyard of a nation. Here’s the historical context of what we just read:

Babylon invaded and defeated Israel in 597BC. Ezekiel was taken into exile into Babylon which is modern day Iraq. Jerusalem had fallen. The temple had been destroyed. Families were dragged into exile hundreds of miles from home. Everything that defined their identity—land, temple, kingship, independence—was gone. War does this.

In Ukraine.

In Gaza City 

In Iran.

To the exiles in Babylon, the future looked exactly like this valley. Dead. Dry. Beyond repair.

In fact, earlier in this chapter the people themselves say it out loud:

“Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off completely.”

They believed their story was over. God then asks Ezekiel a strange question while standing in that valley: “ can these bones live?” It almost sounds absurd. Can dry bones live? Can death reverse itself? Can a nation that has lost everything come back?

Ezekiel answers carefully: “O Lord God, you know.” Because from a human perspective the answer is obvious. No. Bones don’t come back to life.

We know something about valleys of dry bones. Not literal skeletons scattered across the ground—but places where hope feels just as lifeless.

Sometimes the valley is personal. It’s the diagnosis we never expected.
It’s the relationship that has fallen apart beyond repair.
It’s the dream that quietly died while nobody was looking.

Sometimes the valley is spiritual. Faith that once felt alive becomes dry.
Prayer feels empty.
Worship feels routine.

Sometimes the valley is communal. Churches that once overflowed with life struggle to imagine a future. Congregations worry about what the next decade might look like.

Sometimes the valley is the world itself. War. Division. Racism. Violence. Fear. Hate.

Everywhere we look, we see reminders that things break. Systems fail. People fall. Institutions crumble. And when enough time passes, we start believing something dangerous:

That what is broken will always stay broken. That what is dead will always stay dead. That the valley is permanent.

Lent is the season when the church does not pretend otherwise Lent lets us walk honestly through the valley. We remember human fragility. We remember sin’s destructive power.
We remember that the cross is coming.

And standing in that valley, God still asks the same question God asked Ezekiel:

“Can these bones live?” Can YOUR valley of dry bones live again?

And if we are honest, most days our answer sounds exactly like Ezekiel’s.

“Lord, only you know.”

Because from our perspective, it doesn’t look possible.

 But then God tells Ezekiel to do something remarkable.

God says: “Prophesy to these bones. Say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”

Think about that. God tells a prophet to preach… to bones. No ears. No bodies. Just skeletons scattered across a valley floor.

Yet Ezekiel obeys. He speaks the word of God into a place that looks completely lifeless.

And suddenly There was a noise. A rattling. Bones begin moving.

Foot bone connected to the leg bone. Femur to hip bone.Ribs forming a cage. Spines aligning.

Skeletons reassemble across the valley floor. Muscles grow. Skin stretches across their bodies.

But “There was no breath in them.”

They look alive… but they are not…at least not yet. Some things in our lives look right, but they don’t work right. Some thing look good, IG worthy good, like its all put together, but inside it’s still dead. Outside looks good, but inside is empty. The body is there, but the breath is missing. Jesus gives us that breath.

So God commands Ezekiel again: “Prophesy to the breath. Say: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”

The Hebrew word here is ruach. It means breath. It means wind. It also means Spirit.

The same breath that hovered over creation in Genesis…ruach
The same breath that God breathed into humanity…ruach
The same life-giving Spirit that came as wind and fire at Pentecost…ruach

And when the breath comes, They lived. V6 “I will put breath in you, and you will come to life”

They stood on their feet. “A vast multitude.”

Then God explains the vision.

“These bones are the whole house of Israel…
I will open your graves…
I will bring you back to the land…
And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.”

The message is clear: God is not limited by the finality of death.

Where humans see endings, God sees possibilities. Where humans see dry bones, God sees the beginning of resurrection.

This is why the church reads this passage at the end of Lent. Because we are standing right on the edge of the greatest valley of dry bones in the story of faith. In just a few days we will walk through Good Friday.

The cross. The silence of the tomb. The moment when it looked like hope itself had died.

And yet we already know something Ezekiel could only glimpse in a vision. We know what God does in valleys of death. God brings resurrection.

The same Spirit that moved across the bones in Ezekiel’s vision is the Spirit that rolled away the stone from the tomb of Christ. The same breath that filled that valley is the breath that raised Jesus from the dead. The same breath that is in you.

And if God can bring life out of a crucifixion… If God can bring resurrection out of a sealed grave… Then there aint no mountain high enough, aint no valley low enough, aint no river wide enough…..

Not the valley of grief. Not the valley of broken relationships. Not the valley of exhausted faith. Not the valley of struggling churches. Not the valley of a wounded world.

God still speaks life where we only see bones. And the remarkable part of the story: God invites Ezekiel to participate in that life-giving work. .

God could have raised those bones alone. But instead God says: “Speak.”

God uses a human voicesto announce divine life. The church exists today for exactly this reason. Because words matter. Your words matter! You matter. So we can either use our words to speak life, love, healing, hope. Or we can use our words to speak death, hate, anihilaiton, and division. Bc every one of us is doing one or the other today, either in the words we are speaking or in the words we should speak and didn’t. Because the silence of true orthodox historical Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus is deafeningly loud right now when we are complicit and do not live out our baptismal vows and we do not resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves (UMH 34) Bc we have a wonderful message of hope, unity, and eternal life to share with the world—we just need to speak it.

We stand in valleys of dry bones—places where hope seems impossible—and we keep speaking the word of God anyway. We proclaim forgiveness when the world expects revenge. We proclaim reconciliation when division seems permanent. We proclaim resurrection when death looks final.

Not because we are naive. But because we know the Spirit still moves.

The wind of God still blows. And the question God asked Ezekiel is still echoing through every valley of human history: “Can these bones live?”

The gospel answers: Yes. Not because the bones have strength. Not because the valley changes on its own.

But because the Spirit of God breathes life where death once ruled. And that means the final word over every valley is not death. The final word is life. The final word is resurrection. The final word is mercy.  The final word is hope. And in that hope we stand, and with that hope we speak. Because our collective words matter.

Israel, Iran, the US, and what the Bible says (and doesn’t say) about Armageddon

 Even after the resurrection, even after spending forty days with the risen Christ, the disciples still had one question on their minds. “When is it going to happen?” “When will the kingdom finally come?”

In Acts 1, they ask Jesus directly: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

It’s a question about the end of history. It’s a question about God’s timeline.

And Jesus gives an answer that is both simple and profound. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”

In other words: The timeline of history belongs to God.

But then Jesus does something even more important. He redirects their attention away from prediction and toward mission.

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you… and you will be my witnesses.”

The disciples want a calendar. Jesus gives them a calling.

And that same tension still exists today. People still want to know: Is this the war that begins Armageddon? Is this the moment the end begins?

And lately some Christians have been asking that question again because of tensions and conflict involving Israel and Iran. And I have seen some strange things being said about our Christian faith, about war, about the 2nd coming of Jesus, about biblical prophecy. So let’s talk about this word, this place, Armageddon. 

The word appears only once in the entire Book of Revelation. In chapter 16, verse 16, it says:

“And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” Here is the whol context of that chapter:

Revelation 16:1-16

"[1] Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” [2] The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. [3] The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died. [4] The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. [5] Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say: “You are just in these judgments, O Holy One, you who are and who were; [6] for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” [7] And I heard the altar respond: “Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” [8] The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. [9] They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. [10] The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in agony [11] and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done. [12] The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. [13] Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. [14] They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. [15] “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.” [16] Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. [17] The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” [18] Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. [19] The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. [20] Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. [21] From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible."

Megiddo is not an imaginary place. It’s a real location in northern Israel, a strategic hill called TEL Megiddo, overlooking the Jezreel Valley, one of the most important military crossroads in the ancient world. Armies moving between Egypt and Mesopotamia passed through that valley.

Because of that geography, many famous battles in Israel’s history happened there.

In the Old Testament, the forces of Sisera were defeated near Megiddo in the story of Deborah and Barak in Book of Judges. Later, the reforming king Josiah died in battle there against the Egyptians, as recorded in 2 Kings. So by the time John wrote the Book of Revelation, Megiddo had become a symbol. Eric Cline, “Nearly every invading force of Israel has fought a battle in the Jezreel Valley”

Solomon built massive stables on this site for hundreds of war horses. Hezekiah built an extensive underground aqueduct

Over 20 occupational levels of civilizations dating back to 500BC are one on top of the other at Tel Megiddo. 

It represented the place where the great battles of history were fought. John was not necessarily predicting that the world’s final war would literally occur on that hill. Instead, he was drawing on a powerful biblical image his readers already knew: the place where the decisive struggles of God’s people had taken place.

In other words, “Armageddon” was a symbolic way of saying that the forces of empire and injustice will ultimately confront God’s purposes—and God will prevail.

And that makes sense when we remember who the original readers were. They were not people wondering about modern nations or twenty-first-century geopolitics. They were small Christian communities living under the shadow of the Roman Empire.

For them, the message of Revelation was not: “One day, thousands of years from now, there will be a global war and the devil and God with angels and demons will literally fight a battle.”

The message was: “Even when empire looks unstoppable, God will ultimately bring justice and renewal.” Revelation wasn’t meant to give Christians a map of future battlefields. It was meant to give them hope in the middle of history’s struggles.

Here are some words from Benjamin Cremar, a pastor and author from Nazarene Theological Seminary:

As John writes in verse one, the entire letter is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the way of God through Jesus Christ being revealed in the world. It is written in the prophetic genre of apocalyptic resistance literature. It pulls back the curtain on earthly empires and names them for what they are: beastly.

Rome is depicted as the first Beast, seven heads representing the seven hills of Rome. The second beast is the propaganda machine for the first beast, looking like a lamb but speaking for the dragon. Then the mark of loyalty to the beast is a number (666 or 616 in some manuscripts), and when using gematria, the number is transliterated into Hebrew (nrwn qsr) it points to Emporor Nero, one of the worst persecutors of the early church (Rev. 13).

John is offering a theological critique of imperialism in contrast to the way of the crucified Lamb (Jesus Christ). He is telling persecuted Christians that while the empire looks invincible it is not ultimately. Its violence is not divine. Its claims to eternal rule are a parody. They will not have the last word.

This is the contrast to keep in mind when we consider the famous “battle of Armageddon,” which appears in Revelation 16:16. The kings of the earth gather at a place called Armageddon, from “Har-Megiddo,” Mount Megiddo, which is a symbolic site associated with decisive Old Testament conflicts.

But here’s the striking detail many miss: no battle is actually described.

The nations gather. The stage is set. But when we reach Revelation 19, where we expect a final and epic clash of armies, something else astonishing happens.

Christ appears as a rider on a white horse. His robe is dripping with his own blood, not his enemy’s. Legions of angel armies are flanked behind him, armed to the teeth. Then they just stand there. The word comes out of his mouth, which is described as sharper than any double edged sword (the advanced weapon of the time). And the Beast and the kings of the earth are defeated, not through violent warfare, but by the word that proceeds from him, by the word that is revealed through him, by the Word that is him (John 1).

There is no prolonged fight. No exchange of blows. No suspenseful military drama. No Christian foot soldiers taking up arms against hostile evil forces as the “Left Behind” series would have us believe. The “battle” is over before it begins. 

We are then given a casualty report of the enemies of God in Rev 19:20-21. It is a powerful depiction of how Jesus has defeated sin and death through his self giving love on the cross.

This is the entire theological center of the book!

Victory in Revelation does not come through superior violence. It comes through faithful witness, sacrificial love, and divine judgment enacted by truth itself. The conquering Messiah conquers as the slain Lamb, not as a beast.

And when we understand that historical context, something important becomes clear. Armageddon was never meant to make Christians eager for war. It was meant to assure suffering believers that God’s justice would ultimately triumph.

Which brings us back to the words of Jesus in Acts 1. The disciples wanted to know when is going to be the end of the world as we know it. Jesus told them that was not their concern.

Their concern was something much simpler and much harder: “To be my witnesses.”

Because Jesus’ answer then is the same as it is today. “It is not for you to know.”

The church’s job is not to calculate God’s timetable. The church’s job is to bear witness to the kingdom of God. And the church must remain faithful.

The disciples asked Jesus about the end of history. Jesus answered by talking about the mission of the church. And maybe that tells us something important. Whenever Christians become obsessed with predicting the end, we risk forgetting the work God has given us right now. The church is not called to decode headlines. The church is called to embody the gospel.

We are called to feed the hungry. Welcome the stranger. Heal the wounded. Seek justice. Make peace. And until the day Christ returns, we will not live as people waiting for the world to burn. We will live as people already practicing the life of God’s coming kingdom.

Because the end of the story belongs to God. But the witness in the middle of the story….that belongs to us.

Amen.