The Spirit of Life

The day of pentecost (confirmation)

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

Ezekiel 37:1-14

¹ 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. ² 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. ³ He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” ⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ 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.’” ⁷ 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. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

⁹ 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.’” ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. ¹¹ 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.’ ¹² 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. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ 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.’” (NIV)

I imagine the prospect of being buried alive to be among the more terrifying.  Frightening as it might be to contemplate, there were times when it happened accidentally.  A person may have been thought to be dead who was merely unconscious or in a coma.  It could not always be told whether a person was truly dead or not.  Even today, with medical advancements and life-changing technology, we cannot always be sure.  Consider the doctor who deems the patient on life-support to be brain dead, only to have that person make a partial or complete recovery once removed from life-support.  We hear stories of near-death experiences and examples in which not even medicine or science can determine why a person is either alive or dead.  Even today, it turns out, we have difficulty telling whether a person is truly dead or not.

But there was no question about what Ezekiel saw in his vision.  There was nothing but death in the valley before him; there were no signs of life.  The only remains were sun-bleached, dried out bones.  Ezekiel explains, “The hand of the LORD was upon 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” (v.1,2).  Ezekiel had gotten as good a look as one could get at the bones – it was clear to him that the very last thing those bones represented was life.  Bones are synonymous with death, not life. 

That reality served to make the Lord’s question even more surprising: “Son of man, can these bones live” (v.3)?  The answer would normally have been just as easy for us to answer as it would have been for Ezekiel – “No way – bones don’t just come back to life.”  However, Ezekiel knew who was asking the question, and that made all the difference.  Since it was the Almighty himself, the one who established the earth’s foundations, Ezekiel’s response was, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know” (v.3).  Ezekiel had learned his Bible stories growing up; he went to Sunday school.  He knew the Lord’s history with his people and how he had shown his mighty hand time and again, from covering the earth with seas of water at the Flood to splitting seas of water at the Red Sea to deliver his people from Pharaoh, God had shown that even the impossible was within the realm of possible with him.  Sure, he could make the dry bones live.

And he did just that… but this morning we want to take note of how he went about it.  Listen to the Lord’s instructions to Ezekiel: “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.’” (v.4-6).  So Ezekiel prophesied just as he was told to, and what happened is no surprise: suddenly bone came together against bone to form skeletons.  Then the organs and flesh began to cover them – ligaments and muscles took their place. Finally skin covered everything up and the bodies were complete… except that they were still no more alive than when they were nothing but bones.

The final step had to take place.  The Lord’s directions were clear: “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.’” ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army” (v.9,10).  The vision unfolded before Ezekiel’s eyes as he prophesied the word of the Lord, but it wasn’t complete until the Spirit breathed life into the bodies.  And that is always how it has been: life doesn’t come apart from the Word and Spirit of God.

While that truth was made evident in the valley of dry bones, it had already been established in the Garden of Eden.  God had brought all things into existence with his spoken word, but in the case of man it was different; man was set apart in a special way.  The account is recorded for us in the second chapter of Genesis: “the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (2:7).  Nothing else in creation was endowed the God’s breath but man alone.  The pattern was established: the Word of the Lord was spoken, and the Spirit gave life.

If we skip forward through history, we see the pattern repeated at Pentecost.  The disciples at Pentecost heard the word of the Lord, and the Spirit gave them life. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).  Now they weren’t dead, but they were certainly made alive in the Spirit in a way unlike any other.  After the spectacular events of Pentecost, equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit, the church exploded with life.  The Word was sown and the Spirit gave life.

Confirmands, do you see a recurring theme here?  You have something in common with Adam, with those bones in Ezekiel’s vision, and with the disciples: at one point you were dead, but then you heard the Word, and through it the Spirit gave you life.  For most of us that initial Word was heard at our baptisms – “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  The words meant nothing to your infant ears, but through them the Holy Spirit kindled the flame of faith in your heart.  As you grow up spiritually, recalling those words and their significance at your baptism takes on increasingly special meaning.  You were brought to life by the Spirit, and he did it through his breath, his Word… just as he did for Adam, for the dry bones, for the disciples, indeed for all who have ever been brought to faith.  It’s one of the many things that unites the body of Christ – we all were joined to the body through the same Word of God and through the same Spirit.  All gathered here this morning on whose hearts God has staked his claim share that in common: when the Word was spoken, the Spirit gave us life.

“So what?” we may be inclined to ask.  “What does it matter that we all have in common how we were brought to faith?”  It matters because we all have something else in common that threatens that faith: we’re all liars, everyone of us, and in a few short moments you’ll be reminded why.  When these confirmands stand up and come to the front, they’ll be asked the same question(s) many, if not all of us were asked at one time: “Do you reject the devil along with all his lies and empty promises?  The confirmands will respond just as so many of us did with the words, “I do.”  But how have we made ourselves out to be anything but liars at those times when we have not only failed to reject, but have even welcomed the devil and his invitations to sin?  And again the confirmands will be asked, “Do you intend faithfully to conform all your life to the teachings of God’s Word, to be faithful in the use of the Word and sacrament, and in faith and action remain true to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as long as you live?”  And the confirmands will respond in the affirmative, just as so many of us did.  But how have we made ourselves out to be anything but liars during those periods of our lives when “faithful” is the last word on earth that would describe our worship attendance and general lukewarm indifference toward God and his Word?  We are all liars, and – newsflash! – liars aren’t allowed in heaven.

So why again does it matter that the same Word and Spirit worked in all of us to bring us to faith?  Because it is only that same Word and Spirit that keeps you in the faith.  Understand that the very Word that just cut you down was the Spirit at work through his law, but that’s by no means the only work the Spirit does through his Word.  He also comforts, uplifts, restores, reconciles, soothes, and forgives – yes, he forgives.  That is the joyous news of the gospel, the Word of God which the Spirit uses to bring peace to his Church.

The gospel was what was ultimately behind the vision Ezekiel saw.  God’s people were destitute.  They had deserted God so frequently that God finally let them have what they wanted and it was a bitter pill to swallow.  First it was the Northern Kingdom of Israel decimated and exiled.  Then the Southern Kingdom of Judah eventually fell at the hands of the Babylonians.  After Judah’s failed attempts at insurrection, the Babylonians finally squashed any hopes of restoration that Israel might have had.  At least that’s the way it appeared.  But one of the very reasons God allowed Ezekiel to be taken into captivity to Babylon was to prophesy and give the hope of restoration to a fallen nation. 

And God did just that, as Ezekiel shared: “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’” (v.11-14).  Their situation seemed hopeless; God gave them hope.

God does the same for us.  When the guilt of our sin pierces our conscience and nothing else will soothe it, when God’s law convicts us as liars and we cannot deny it, when the devil himself concludes his most compelling case to convince us that the gateway into paradise will certainly not be opened for us, that is when the Holy Spirit comes in, though the Word – always through the Word – and jars us with the gospel of grace to draw the eyes of our hearts to the cross and the tomb.  For there is where the devil’s case falls apart to pieces.  See the Savior, see the sacrifice, see the cross, see the tomb – see it all, and at that moment you know the life that the Spirit gave to Adam and to the disciples – not just the “I’m still breathing” or “I’m still vertical” life, but spiritual life that will last long after your time here on earth is over; life in Jesus. 

The Spirit gives that kind of life.  The Spirit alone sustains that kind of life.  He does it through his Word.  Confirmands, more than anything else in this world – more than a decorated athletic legacy or a successful career or fame or fortune, I pray for the one thing that is important in your life – that God always keeps you in his Word.  Amen.

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)