Prophesy, O Mortal
In the pilgrimage toward Christ’s birth, as we move forward unto the glory of the Lord shining all around and in our hearts, it might feel like we are in the messy middle. We might need to take a step back and remember why we are where we are today and how that gets us to where we long to be.
We’re not reading about Elizabeth or Zechariah or angels saying “do not be afraid.” We are not thinking about Mary’s call for justice or Joseph’s hard decision. Instead we are in the valley of dry bones.
So as I prepared for today, I felt the need to help us spiral up to a 30,000 foot view and remember why, here in the heart of December, we continue to read from the old testament prophets.
The narrative lectionary, the “reading plan” that we are using to work our way through much of scripture over the course of four years, focuses each year – from Advent through Easter at least – on a single Gospel. This year, the gospel text is John, and as we will be reminded when we (finally) get to the gospel of John two weeks from now, there is no story of the birth of Jesus. That makes it sort of hard to meet all the traditional expectations of what church looks and sounds like during Advent.
But if we focus only on birth stories, if we focus only on what the gospels of Matthew and Luke say about the events leading up to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, we miss key parts of the big story of God into which Jesus, who was Jewish, was born.
In today’s reading, we are in the deepest part of the brokenness of Israel during the Babylonian exile – reading text that was probably authored about 150 years before Jesus’ birth but that recounts an historic situation that happened more than 350 years prior to that, or a solid 500 years prior to Jesus’ birth. This story heard today was probably written down when it was because the people once again found themselves in a time of great political, economic, and social oppression as influences of Greek occupation expanded through the Mediterranean and Middle East.
History repeats itself, you see. Again and again.
And stories of our history have the power to remind us of the resilience of our past so that we can bear hard things in our present.
In our reading, the prophet encounters God in a vision, and is asked to look out over a valley of bones – bones that have been there for a while – long enough to be bleached and dry.
God asks the prophet whether they believe that life can come from a place of such desolation. And the prophet defers to God’s power – surely you know the answer God.
God instructs the prophet to speak to the bones – to tell them that God will indeed breathe into the bones and cause them to live again.
O dry bones, hear the world of the Lord …I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and knw that I am God.
This is such a compelling vision.
Can yourself in an arid place – a dry and dusty and lonely place full of bones, brittle, bleached and broken as far as the eye can see?
Then there is a rattling and rustling as the bones begin to come together – and not just bone to bone, but the bones are being covered by muscle and flesh. In my mind’s eye it is kind of the reverse of melting, seeing bodies reconstructed on what was once fragmented skeleton.
However, even as the bones are coming together as fully formed bodies, there is an eerie silence in the place.
So God instructs the prophet to call on the breath to infuse life into the eerily silent gathering.
Come from the four winds o breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live…
And the breath of God comes from all directions.
Can you hear the collective inhale – the point at which life begins again? Can you imagine the stirring, the awakening, the return of life?
Out of the depths of collective brokenness, the prophet witnesses God’s power in the breath to bring the people of Israel back to life, to see their community restored from the separation and hardship of their time of exile.
This story is an echo of the creation story from Genesis, in which God gathered up the dust of the ground to form the human – Adam – breathing into their nostrils so that Adam would be a living being.
There is so much hope wrapped up in this story – hope that is bigger than only human life – hope that is ultimately about the restoration and thriving of creation and of the people of God, brought back from the brink of annihilation.
The breath of God is the lifeforce of all creation.
Prophesy to the breath, oh mortal – speak hope into this dark place.
Did you catch that? God asked the human one to speak over the dry bones.
In Advent, this might allow us to catch a glimpse of Godself taking on human flesh to walk among us.
And all humans have a role to play in speaking life.
I have a role to play, you have a role to play, we together have a role to play. To say, yes, God can do this…
(Do we believe that?
Do we believe that God can bring new life to places of dryness?
On Friday night, my daughter Paige and I attended the Rockville Civic Ballet performance of the The Nutcracker. There were no less than 20 Faith folks in the audience Friday evening – and there were more people helping backstage and in the front of the house.There were five children from our congregation dancing.
It was amazing. It felt like small-town stuff.
Faith was in the house.
Two or three years ago here at Faith, I shared that a key predictor of a young person’s likelihood of being part of a church in adulthood was that young person having 2 or more adults from church beyond their family who knows their name and can talk to them about their interests outside of church.
I think that looks like people showing up to see kids dance.
You are DOING it, folks. You are getting to know our young people, you are showing up for them – and not just for church.
Prophesy to the breath, o mortal. Can these bones live?
Do we know that they can?
I do.
How about you?
Today, we are remembering the “why” of our pilgrimage toward the moment and place of God’s taken on human flesh in Jesus.
We are remembering our own role in knowing the story so that we can live into the hope that we have for eternal life.
We are remembering our role in pointing to the big-ness of God, the big-ness of God’s story, the way we are included in the power and promise of that story that culminates with life – both in a baby and in an empty tomb.
We are remembering the ways that we are called on to prophesy to the breath, to call on life.
This is our work on the journey, especially in the messy middle.
May it be so.
Amen.
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