Dry Bones, New Year

Read Ezekiel 37

Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah and Daniel.  That is to say, the Babylonians had defeated Jerusalem and Judah and taken many captives and deported them to Babylon.  Daniel went in the first wave.  Ezekiel in the second.  Jeremiah prophesied in both locations.  Together they paint a more complete picture of these times when God’s people were humbled by their enemies.

All of these prophets note that it was the turning away from God and his laws and his righteousness that resulted in God lifting his protection from their enemies.  Collectively there were a whole mess of warnings, followed by “I told you so’s” followed by promises of restoration.

Today we focus on Ezekiel and one special pericope.  Ezekiel was unique in that he prophesied not only the removal of God’s glory from the temple and his people but the restoration of both.  God’s people would know God’s glory once again.

Ezekiel is unique in that he prophesied not only to God’s people but to Edom and Egypt, to mountains, and surely to God’s own people.

This 37^th chapter presents imagery of what might have been the aftermath of battles fought in a place once called Topath or Ben Hinnom but which the Lord told Jeremiah would henceforth be known as the Valley of Slaughter. 

This was a vision of a place that left God’s people desolate and void of joy.  Imagine our countryside covered not in wheat fields and hay bales, cattle and windmills, barns and farmhouses, but desert and dry bones.  Imagine that a battle was waged here, and the bodies of soldiers were too numerous to evacuate and give a proper burial.

Imagine defeat so tragic that we would not even bring our veteran’s bodies to a proper resting place.  Year after year the uniforms wear off, scavenger birds eat the flesh, and sun and wind bleach and wither the skeletal remains. 

You probably are thinking, “Hey! Enough of that.  We have a fellowship meal in a little bit.”

I doubt had Ezekiel planned his own day, he would have wanted to be brought to this place either, but he was.  He was brought there in the spirit—in a vision—that the Lord had given him. This was nothing new to Ezekiel, he prophesied time and again for the Lord, but this was a unique vision and conversation that followed.

The Lord says, “Son of man—speaking to Ezekiel—can these bones live?”

Ezekiel sort of knows that this is a trick question.  It’s like there is no way these bones have any future but dust, but then again, I am having this conversation with the Lord, so what can I say?

Oh Sovereign Lord, only you know!

The Lord doesn’t just say, “I got this.”  He instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones.  He says tell these bones that I will put them back together and breath life back into them.

Ezekiel does what he is told and as he is speaking there is this rattling sound of bones coming back together.  You might be thinking that this chapter should be accompanied with the soundtrack to Thriller. 

But there is more to this than just skeletons coming back together.  Tendons and flesh and skin are reconstituting these once desolate bones.  Yet, these creatures are not alive.  There is no breath in them.

So the Lord instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath.  Let it come from the four winds.  Ezekiel did as commanded and breath entered them and they stood and came to life.

Now that’s some stuff right there, but God was not just showing off.  He told Ezekiel that these bones were the whole house of Israel—not two kingdoms but one—who had given up hope.

God said that he would restore his people—people who were now captives or living among the rubble of their once proud lands.  To understand the imagery of the bones, we must turn back to the previous chapter.

Again, the Lord gives Ezekiel prophesies.  He says that he will gather his people from all over the world and restore them to the land promised them.  He will take out their hearts of stone and replace it with one of flesh.  These people will be receptive to the Lord’s ways.

None of this will be because the people earned restoration.  They did not.  The Lord said that they should be ashamed of their conduct.  The Lord will do this because he is the Lord and so that the people will have no doubt that he is the Lord.

The nations that scorned God’s people will also know that he is the Lord and he does what he says he will do.  The Lord does what he says he will do.

It’s a cool story that we should all know.  It helps us understand Israel’s history and prophecy.  It gives us insight into a time long ago, and…

Perhaps it gives us some hope for the year to come.  In the whole of my life, I have never seen such insanity as I have seen this year.  I have never seen such disdain for the one true God and his holy word.  Whether it is celebrating a right to kill a child or change your gender on a monthly basis or just ridicule someone who professes God’s word as a hater or racists or some other derogatory term yet to be conceived, the world is moving farther away from God. 

We are blessed to live where we do but we are not immune from the depravity of the world.  I don’t think that I have lived through a year that had as much hate, animosity, acrimony, and general discord as this one.

I don’t think I have known a year with as much narcissism, condemnation of others, and just general depravity as this one.  You might just want to throw in the towel on this whole living right business.

We might look around and see a world full of dried bones.  We might see ourselves as having already moved beyond the tipping point.  We might just say, the end is surely near.  The world is going to hell in a handbasket and we had just as well enjoy the ride.

Or…

We might prophesy to the dry bones.  What would we say?  Has the Lord given us words to say to these dry bones around us now?

He has.  What if we spoke his words to the dry bones of this age?  What if we spoke words of affirmation to each other?  What if…

The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.

How about Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

No weapon formed against you shall prevail.  You will refute every false accusation made against you.

If you lack wisdom ask God, and he will give it to you without finding fault.

Submit to God.  Resist the Devil and he will flee from you!

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Here’s one that you might have heard a few, dozen, hundred times.  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

What if we challenged each other every week with this one? 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

What if we encouraged each other with this one?

Perfect love casts out fear.

What if we proclaimed this one to the world—even a world of dry bones?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

What if we reminded each other of this one?

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

What if we starting speaking the words given to us by God and did it on a regular basis?  What if we talked less about the Sooners and more about God is love?

What if we talked less about politics and more about the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

What if instead of ranting on the price of gasoline, we reminded each other that the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

How about when we need to encourage each other or are going through some stuff, we remind each other:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Or we remind each other of Joseph’s words to his brothers when we have been wronged by someone.

What was intended for evil, God used for good.

Or when we just can’t seem to hold on and be that overcomer that we want to be…

“What no eye has seen,

    what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived”—

    the things God has prepared for those who love him.

What if in 2019, we started speaking to the dead bones all around us.  What if we spoke to those living with apathy and ambivalence to the one true God?  What would we say?

The Lord that we know is not slow to come a second time.  He is patient desiring none to perish—that all come to repentance.  

Produce fruit worthy of repentance.

Jesus has come that we may have life and life lived to the full.

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

The world is a mess.  It is moving farther away from God.  We are a little better here than in some places, but the love of many is growing cold, even in our refuge.

We must speak the words of the Lord.  We have so many from which to choose.  We speak to each other to challenge and encourage and to the lost and disconnected in hopes that they will know the grace of God that we do.

But speaking the words is not enough.  We must have the breath.  We must have the Spirit of God leading us, guiding us, prompting us to speak his words.

The Holy Spirit must accompany our every word whether we are quoting scripture or not.  We must not only yield to the Spirit’s direction but embrace it as well.  As we look forward, let’s make more of those words that we speak, the words of the Lord.  Let us prophecy to the dead bones around us with words that we have already been given.

Let us encourage one another with affirmations found in the word of God.  

Let us speak the truth in love and thereby grow in his grace.

Where do we start?  Let’s go with this while you start putting your plan to speak God’s word more next year.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Happy New Year and Amen!

Oaks of Righteousness

Read Isaiah 61

Imagine being the lowest and least regarded person at your job.  Some will say, “Hey!  I don’t have to imagine that.”

Now imagine that you have been promoted to a senior executive.  Lowest guy in the hierarchy to the top dog just like that.  Most people would think, “I could live with that.”

The prophet Isaiah knew that this was what was in store for God’s people.  They would be totally devastated.  The Babylonians would complete that process, but the Egyptians—sometimes an ally—and the Assyrians had been dismantling all of God’s Chosen People for some time. 

The political landscape of the time was complicated.  It was even more complicated as God’s people moved farther away from the righteousness of God and looked more and more like their pagan neighbors.  The more they blended in with the pagan nations that surrounded them, the more they became entwined in trying to solve their problems without God.

It was a vicious cycle.

This land promised to Abraham and his descendants and delivered to them under the leadership of Joshua would be in ruins.  God’s people would be captured and taken into exile if they had not already fled the area before the conquerors arrived.

The days when God gave victory after victory to his people under Joshua’s leadership had given way to people who desired kings and received them, wanted armies and then fielded them, and who accepted gods made in man’s own image and they embraced them.

Think to the end of the book of Joshua.  The land is conquered and settled.  Joshua’s time is about up, but he issues a challenge to the people.

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.  But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.

 “‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out.  When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. But they cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

 “‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land.  When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you.  But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.

 “‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands.  I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow.  So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!  It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled.  And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.  If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

God’s people knew this story and they knew it well.  Even when they were disobedient, they knew their history and what God had done for them.

They had been disobedient for a long time and God was withdrawing his protection from them.  Remember the words of the Lord that came through Joshua.

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.

This was happening.  After all the chances that God’s people had been given to repent and return to the Lord, they remained comfortable in their apostacy.  They would receive what they asked for.  They were witnesses against themselves.

If this was your favorite television series, this would be the season ending episode.  Everything is falling apart.  Come back next season.  Isaiah could have left the people hanging, but he didn’t.

For the Lord had not given up on them.  When they would hit the lowest of lows, God offered them hope and a future.

Isaiah had been given a vision of hope by the Spirit of the Lord.  This hope was more than just a chance to go home to a desolate land.  It was more.

It was good news for the poor.

It was healing for the broken hearted.

It was freedom for captives.

It was salvation for his people.

It was beauty instead of ashes.

It was defeat for enemies of God’s people.

It was comfort for those who mourn.

It was gladness replacing grief.

It was songs of praise instead of sorrow.

It was ruins rebuilt.

It was to rule over foreigners who would work the land and care for the livestock.

God’s people would be laborers no more.

Shame and disgrace will end.

Wealth will abound.

They will be priests of the Lord.

Joy will last forever.

The world will see God’s people and say, “They are blessed!”

Jerusalem—the city in ruins—would be adorned as a bride.

She will be clothed with victory and salvation.

The sovereign Lord will save his people and the nations will praise him.

Now that’s something!  God’s people would know the lowest of lows and then be restored beyond their dreams. 

It’s not like when we send our kids to their rooms because they have acted out.  After a while—long or short—we say, you can come out now and life resumes.

When God says, “You can come out of your room now,” it’s a whole new world.  It is everything made new again.  It is wonderful.  What God has in store for us is full of wonder.

We were never captives in Assyria or Babylon or had to flee oppressors.  We have never seen our homeland devastated.  We were attacked at Pearl Harbor.  We were attacked on 9-11.  But you have to go way back to when the British burned Washington D.C. to get anything close—remotely close—to what God’s Chosen People would know firsthand.

But we know lives that have been given over to poverty, brokenness, captivity, mourning, grief, shame, disgrace, and even some hopelessness.

We have not all been through these things, but most have been through some.  Today, our separation from God’s favor takes the form of addiction, apathy, lives without purpose, self-gratification, and so many other things that pull us away from God.

But whether you were exiled to live as a servant among the pagans or in a self-imposed exile of drugs or disconnection; God never gave up on you.  God may stand back for a time, but he never gives up on you.

God may let you deal with the natural consequences of addiction, foolishness, wickedness, or just insisting on your own way, but he has never stopped loving you.

And when it is time to come home, it’s a big deal.  It is a very big deal.  It is gladness over grief.  It is healing for the broken hearted.  It is praise over sorrow.  It is freedom for the captives.

We have never been held captive in Babylon, but we have been held captive by our foolishness, laziness, apathy, and even ignorance.  But when our eyes were opened to the truth, we knew victory and salvation.

There was one part of a verse that I didn’t say anything about.  Isaiah prophesies:

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord

for the display of his splendor.

You can have bad news and good news and then more bad news again.

You can be captive then free then captive again.

You can have ashes then beauty and then ashes again.

You can have grief then gladness then grief again.

You can have poverty and wealth and poverty again.

But the Lord speaking through Isaiah wanted his people to know that their restoration would last.  Some of this restoration began in the 6^th Century B.C. when the captives began returning from Babylon.  Some comes in the age ahead.

The imagery of Isaiah is of an Oak tree planted by the Lord. 

I bought my Burns Flat house after coming back from Iraq in 1992.  The price of the house and the new car that I had bought were about the same.  My thought was that the house needed a lot of work and that would be more expense.  I didn’t know that the car would too.  I haven’t bought a Ford since, though both of my kids have some.

Enough Ford bashing…

The house that I bought only had one tree.  It was perhaps the ugliest tree that I had seen and it was too close to the foundation.  So, one summer Christopher and I came to Burns Flat from California for about a week.  I planted a few trees around the house.  One of them was an Oak.

It was just over six feet tall when I planted it.  When I checked on it a couple years later, it seemed that it hadn’t grown much.  When we moved into the house in 1999, it still did not seem like it had grown much, but it’s roots were getting deeper and deeper.

Finally, over the past few years, it looks more like the oak trees that I remembered as a child.  Little did I know that the trees that I enjoyed climbing and that shaded parts of the yard when I was young had been around a very long time.

My grandchildren’s children may get to make a tree house in my oak tree.  It takes a while for an oak to become massive, but once it has grown for a few decades, there a few trees like it.  It will be there for many generations.

Isaiah used imagery that the people could understand.  This oak of righteousness would bring glory and honor and splendor to the Lord.

The Lord was doing a mighty thing.  He was taking people who could never be righteous on their own accord and making them right with him.

This would be a lasting thing.  This would be an everlasting righteousness.  This would be more than a trip home from Babylon.  This was an invitation to receive the best gift ever—God with us.

We celebrate Christmas—the Babe in a manger—knowing that it is not a stand-alone story.  Emanuel was there at the beginning and will be with us for all eternity.

We know that God lets people endure the consequences of their decisions, but he never gives up on them.  His desire is for none to perish.

We know that restoration goes beyond what our hearts can conceive.

We know that God came into the world as a baby, not because we as humankind were finally getting our act together, but because we could not.

We know that when our human heart knows only hopelessness, God will give us hope.

We know that no matter how broken our lives become, God heals all wounds.

We know that no matter how much the world seems to be closing in on us, God is the ultimate liberator.

This Christianity that we know, this discipleship that we know, this following Jesus that we tried so hard to get right comes with an eternal reward.

Not something temporary and transient as the world offers.

Not something that corrodes or can be stolen.

Not something that is here today and gone tomorrow.

We, like the mighty oak that thrives for centuries, will be God’s righteousness for ever and ever.  This profession of faith that we have made is no small thing.

Our proclamation that Jesus is Lord are not passing words.

This assurance in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is not a momentary emotion.

God has claimed us from sin and from death and has made us through the blood of Christ Jesus to be his righteousness for ever and ever.

That’s no small deal.

Remember that it’s not all about you.  It’s all about God, but he did this very special thing for you, for us, forever.  Remember that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it but that through him we might be saved.

God has done a mighty thing.  He has made us right with him for all eternity and doing this mighty thing for us is to his splendor, and honor, and glory.

Amen.