encountering God in exile in Ezekiel 37:1-14

It’s been over a month of staying home here in Vancouver. There are times I lose track of what day it is. There are times I feel like crying when I read about people who have lost their lives and of the constantly-increasing cases back in Singapore. But there are times, too, that I feel happy–to be able to go on short sunshine-filled walks, try out new recipes at home, and work out virtually with friends.

Mostly, it feels like I’m just a messy ball of emotions these days. And these aren’t emotions I can just shut away; they come unannounced into moments where I have to get things done, like exams, papers, and housework (urgh–clearly not the kind of person who enjoys cleaning and de-cluttering :p). Mostly, I’m just trying to get by as each day comes and goes.

If you, too, are trying to “make sense” of everything that’s been happening, or if you’ve been feeling so drained and tired and you don’t even know why… you’re not alone! One thing that encouraged me this week to remember that God is here with us, amidst our bewilderment and grief and self-isolation, is a sermon my husband vic gave as part of a course he’s doing at Regent College. He’s kindly agreed to share the script that he wrote below, and I hope it speaks Life to you in this time.

xx,
iz

It’s an apocalyptic scene. You’ve been somehow brought into what seems like an alternate reality, a bad dream, a scene of death and destruction, and not by your own choice. The dead are scattered, all around. Unidentified, unburied, innumerable, inconceivable. A catastrophe of immense proportions has taken place, and the human cost is too great to bear.

You want to mourn, but you don’t know where to start. The normal rhythms of life itself are disrupted, occasions that usually call for celebration are softly muted. Out of fear, everyone else stays away, hoping that they can remain safe if they shelter in place. Reports of further death and destruction come from back home. And your heart sinks in despair.

It is the year 577 BC, and “you” are the prophet Ezekiel. It has been 20 years since your own exile to the region of the Kebar River in Babylon, and 10 years since Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, its temple desecrated and despoiled, its walls damaged and devastated, its people dead or deported.

The raw, palpable shock of this still haunts you – you remember the exact moment when you heard the news as if it was yesterday. It is not quite like the stories passed down from your great-great-grandfather, of how the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed – yes, that was a catastrophe, but it was someone else’s catastrophe, and that was a long time ago. This one strikes much closer to home.

In the midst of Ezekiel’s embodied exile, he is transported into another place. Hear these words from Ezekiel 37:1-14:

The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

This is the word of the LORD.

I’d like to share four observations drawn from this passage; each of them relates to God’s divine initiative and the human response in the context of exile and suffering, and together they align with the biblical themes of creation-fall-redemption-restoration.

1. God exhales and we are enlivened.

When we read the text, did you notice that God told Ezekiel to do something, which he did, but the desired result was not achieved?

In Ezekiel 37, we are presented with what seems like a command-fulfillment pattern – God commands, and his people obey, and God recognizes their obedience. It is a pattern that Ezekiel’s readers would have recognized. So for example, in Exodus 25-40, God gave very specific commands regarding the construction of the Tabernacle, and the response of Moses, Bezalel and the people is recorded, almost exactly word-for-word as the fulfillment of God’s command. And when the work was finished “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”

Here, God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones in verses 4-6 so that they may come back to life. He obeys in verse 7, but in verse 8, the bones are reconstituted and en-fleshed, but they do not come to life. The dry bones do come to life later, when the divine spirit-wind-breath breathes on them, but here we find an unexpected interruption in the narrative. At this point, Ezekiel’s readers would be wondering, “Just what is going on here?”

Now, some of them might make the connection with Genesis 2:7:

“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

Ah… A two-step process – first a physical embodiment, then coming to life when God exhales. Through this literary device, we are reminded that we are more than mere matter. Humans have been given inherent dignity, made in the image of God. And the life that we have been given is God’s own spirit-wind-breath.

But Ezekiel goes one step further. Through this divine pause, he points to a recapitulation, a remaking, a new creation. Whereas Adam is formed from dust, here piles of dead bones are revivified, arising as an army, vital, attentive, and ready to act.

2. God reveals Himself and we recognize Him.

In verses 6 and 13, amazing miracles of restoration are given so that Israel will know that He is the LORD. But if we look across the whole Old Testament, it is clear that Ezekiel’s prophetic intent is the revelation and recognition of God in the midst of exile. This phrase occurs more than 70 times, more frequently by far than any other Old Testament book.

But it is not just God’s revelatory acts of restoration that point to Him; not just the good stuff. God’s judgment of Israel’s longstanding apostasy, in exile and in suffering, was also to be recognized as an act of revelation as well.

I don’t claim to understand the suffering that each of you is going through at this time. It is painful, and it not something to be spoken about lightly, if at all. From my limited experience, suffering is extremely painful, but brings a certain clarity. Perhaps the greatest suffering is when humans given breath by God are no longer in good standing with their Creator. When sin enters into an otherwise perfect world, it mars and tars it with imperfection. Humanity suffers. And it has been so since the Fall.

3. God remembers and we are redeemed.

In verse 11, God speaks about the house of Israel. And to us reading this passage in 2020, it is unremarkable. Some of us might be familiar with the story of God’s covenant with Israel. No problem, let’s move on. Wait, except, in 577 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel does not exist – it had been destroyed by the Assyrians almost 150 years before. They erased that name from the region – splitting the nation of Israel into two provinces, Megiddo and Samerina (called Samaria later).

The Babylonians came along and the southern kingdom of Judah became the province of Yehud. Those related to the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob started to be called Judeans or Jews around this time. With these invasions, significant proportions of the people are killed or exiled, leaving only the old, vulnerable and weak.

Israel? In Ezekiel’s day, there is no such thing. People don’t use that name to refer to themselves anymore. They vaguely remember it, through the stories handed down from generations ago. And even then, these memories are hazy and incomplete.

But God remembers Israel. He has enacted justice on Israel for her longstanding faithlessness, but this justice is brought because of his covenant with Israel. Put in another way, the punishment does not signal an end to the relationship between God and Israel. On the contrary, it demonstrates that the covenant relationship is still in operation! And God remembers Israel!

And when God remembers Israel, He gives it an objective reality that no map or place name can confer. And a people who have utterly lost hope, whose strength has failed amidst their suffering, can begin to climb out of their graves – God opens up their tombs, and they are redeemed.

4. God tabernacles in us, and we are transformed.

In the First Temple, before it was destroyed, the Holy of Holies is separated from the section of the temple called the Holy by a curtain. The high priest goes in there once a year, and with fear and trembling, offers a sacrifice in atonement for the nation’s sin. One person, once a year, encounters the presence of the Most High.

But the temple has been destroyed. The conundrum facing the exilic community is the fact that God’s presence has no “place” to dwell. I say that in inverted commas, because God is not restricted to three-dimensional constructs. But the concepts of land and temple have till recently remained central pillars of their faith and identity. Even if God remembers and redeems Israel, they’d lack a place to worship Him.

In this context, God’s promise to put his Spirit in Israel turns everything upside-down!

Ezekiel looks ahead to a day when a multitude of people experience the presence of the Most High God not yearly, not monthly, not even daily. All the time. The Spirit of God dwells in this people. Not outside, not around, not at the edges, in the corners. Inside!

And when God’s presence rests, what happens? Worship! Worship happens. Praise! Adoration! A realization of sinfulness. A desire to change. Not to conform to external regulations or expectations. Inside! He transforms us, restores us from the inside out! Hallelujah! Praise be to God.

And here I have to talk about Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost. I have to whisper about the cross. I have to murmur about the torn veil, and the dead saints who came to life. I have to mutter about the stone rolled away, and I have to sing about the empty tomb. I have to bellow about the risen Christ, and I have to shout about the Spirit’s indwelling.

I have to say, this is what Ezekiel was talking about.

Today, we find ourselves at a peculiar intersection in time. Liturgically, we have entered into the seven weeks of Easter, which corresponds to the period between the Passover and the Feast of Weeks, as the first believers prayed and waited for power from on high.

Here at school, we have entered into what can be called the longest weekend. Since Friday March 13th, we have not seen the insides of our classrooms. Instead, we’ve been mostly at home (well, I hope that we have been mostly at home). Our lives have been turned upside down by this virus, and although the toll here in BC is not as heavy as it is in other places, we acknowledge with heavy heart the immense suffering as this disease sickens people, takes lives, hinders mourning, and affects livelihoods.

What should we do at this intersection in time? Like the first believers, let us begin to pray. Let’s not start by praying for the renewal of creation, even though that is so needed. Nor by praying for humanity’s suffering, which weighs on us with its immediacy and immensity.

At this particular intersection in time, let us pray that God will exhale so humanity might be enlivened. Let us pray that God reveals Himself so that humanity might recognize him. Let us pray that God remembers, so that humanity might be redeemed. And let us pray that God tabernacles in us, so that humanity might be transformed.

Come, Holy Spirit. Come.

pin this for later: