Scripture – Ezekiel 37:1-14 and John 11:1-45
I think it might have been this week I started trying to wrap my head around how long this pandemic and the practice of distancing might last. We aren’t going back to something we recognize for a while yet. Within the United Church of Canada there is no expectation that we will be back to gathering for regular worship by Easter. We are talking about months not weeks.
This past week I, along with other ministers in the United Church were told funerals were on hold for the time being. I can’t begin to describe how heartbreaking that news was. It goes against so much of what and how we as ministers are trained and called to do in times of grief.
These times are painful, they are forcing us to respond in new ways to traditional issues and recognize the ways we have taken so much for granted. So much is turned upside down. So much of what we look to and count on seems to be disappearing.
What can we rely upon?
There are two significant and powerful scripture passages this week. I read one of them, Ezekiel’s prophecy of the valley of dry bones. There is also the story from the gospel of John about the death and resurrection of Lazarus. Both tell a similar story of God bringing life when all seems lost.
Ezekiel is one of those prophets who can be a tough read. His imagery is often out there. He can be explicit. But his call to the Jewish people to hold on to their faith and consequently their hope is profound.
When Ezekiel is called to become a prophet, he is already, along with the Israelites already in exile. He comes to tell his fellow Jews to hold on to their faith and their relationship to the God who led them out of slavery. They are now living in Babylon. The temple that is so much a part of their faith has been destroyed. They have been removed from the land they view as promised by God. They are separated from all they know and value. They are lost in a land and a culture they don’t recognize and find themselves asking if they have been abandoned by their God.
The people of Israel must find new ways to stay connected to God and to whom they are in new and terrifying circumstances. Where do they turn for hope? What can they hold on to?
In to this Ezekiel calls them to hold on. He describes a valley of bones; the remains of the Israelites who come before them. Bones, dried from sitting out exposed to the heat and the sun. It is a place of death; a place of no hope.
And in that place God brings forth new life. God fashions those bones into new life. In the shadow of hopelessness God offers something new.
It is the same in the story of Lazarus. Jesus does not arrive in Bethany in time to cure his sick friend. Mary and Martha ask him, ‘where were you?’ You could have fixed this.
They weep. Jesus weeps. It is four days since Lazarus dies. The scripture says they are reluctant to roll away the stone for fear of the stench. Death is painful. It is heart wrenching. It stinks.
And in that place. Of heartache and grief. Of loss of hope. Where even Jesus weeps at the loss of a friend, Jesus brings forth new life.
Will our faith protect us from grief and heartbreak? Not always. I fear what may still be coming with this pandemic. I wonder still what we will be called as a community to respond to. I pray that I and so many others have the strength and the imagination to offer the care and the response needed in this time.
But I am assured that God is with us. God is offering us comfort and peace in these disruptive and strange times. And I believe in the midst of all the ways the world around us is turning upside down and the things we have counted on disappear, God is creating new life.
I don’t know what it looks like. I am still noting and grieving what seems to be missing. But I am also trying to keep my eyes and ears open for the new life that is sure to take root in our midst. I look forward to celebrating that new life; that new creation and working with God to see it grow into something amazing; like the branches that come from the mustard seed Jesus tells us about.
Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus the Christ is at work all around us. Let us hold on to the faith that something new is being done.
Thanks be to God.