I remember the time one of my kids decided to run a marathon. He didn’t just lace up his shoes one morning and go out to the starting line. He prepared. He followed a rigorous training plan – a very impressive one. So, he thought he was ready for it, and I did too. But it was harder than he expected it to be. He told me later that at a certain point, he was in so much pain with every step he could barely go on.
In distance running they call that “hitting the wall,” when the pain and fatigue are overpowering. I have heard it said that it’s like your body and your mind are having a conversation. Your body says, “Look, you’ve had me out here for hours, running hard. I am really, really hurting right now so I think we should just go over there to the side of the road and lie down.” And the body has a pretty convincing argument at that point. What’s worse, the mind will find it pretty hard to argue back because it is energy-deprived – all the fuel is going toward keeping the legs moving. As a result, the will is weak and confused. It seems like a tough place to be. I would imagine it feels like a dead end.
How do you go on when you have run into a dead end? When all hope is gone? This is what Israel wondered during their time of exile, more than 500 years before Christ was born. The army of Babylon tore down the city walls, burned down the temple. Jerusalem was destroyed. They dragged many of the people to Babylon where they remained in exile for decades.
The prophet Ezekiel was with them in their exile, in their hopelessness. They believed God had abandoned them. They were the walking dead. In some of the psalms they wrote back then you can hear the despair they felt.
Then one day God gave Ezekiel a vision. God led him out to a valley filled with dry bones – heaps of the bones of those long dead. Not a speck of life left in them in this valley of death. Life had long ago left this place. Then Ezekiel hears a most peculiar question from God: Mortal, can these bones live?
And imagine Ezekiel’s answer in this way: “Augh – Lord God! You know,” He doesn’t even finish his thought. Why bother? If the Lord wants to entertain impossible questions, who am I to argue?
And when the Lord says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, Ezekiel, prophesy!” Sure, why not? After all, he doesn’t have anything better to do than engage in exercises of futility. Sure, prophesy to the dry bones.
It was the same when Jesus in Bethany called out, “Take away the stone;” open the tomb of Lazarus, now four days dead. Really and truly dead. Not just maybe-somewhat-possibly dead, but really-honestly-truly dead. Well, there will be a stench – don’t say we didn’t warn you. But, sure, why not – let’s open the tomb.
Why does God insist on looking death in the face as though it was not there?
When the evidence is clear, tangible, and irrefutable that it is over for Israel, God says, “Hey Ezekiel, why don’t you go prophesy to those bones. Let’s breathe some life back into them; it’s time for them to go back home.”
When the evidence is clear, tangible, and irrefutable that it is over for Lazarus, Jesus says, “Open the tomb, guys. It’s time to fetch Lazarus and bring him home.”
Foolishness. Folly. I dare say that Ezekiel didn’t see things God’s way as he stood in the valley of dry bones. Nor did the people of Bethany see things Jesus’ way as they stood around the tomb. But here’s the kicker: they did it anyway.
They did it anyway.
In the face of clear evidence that this was the end, that there was no longer any hope of life, they acted in a way that was contrary to the evidence, because God urged them to. They looked death in the face as though it was not there.
When my son hit the wall during that marathon, he had a hard choice to make. He chose to keep going. He kept putting one foot in front of the other. Even though the finish line seemed like it was an infinite number of steps away, even though the joy was long gone, he put one foot in front of the other, again and again and again, one step at a time.
I understand that’s what runners do. Is that what people of faith do?
When we have stopped feeling like praying, do we pray? Even when, as we sometimes say, our heart is not in it, do we press on, putting one foot before the other?
Sometimes we feel discouraged, like we’re in a dark place with no hope. Certain situations in life can leave me feeling like that. Even just the season of Lent can do it. One day I realize that I have lost my hope, and I just have to go searching for it, like I search for my keys or my glasses. Now where did I leave it…when did I last have my hope?
Have you ever felt that way? You might even hear a little voice inside of you whispering while you’re searching under the couch cushions, “You know it’s gone. You’re not going to find your hope.”
There are days that I think we may actually have more faith in death than hope, as we said in our prayer of confession. Death is sure and certain, we have seen the evidence.
Death was certainly what Ezekiel was looking at in that valley of dry bones. Death was the most certain state of Lazarus, four days in the dark, dark tomb.
Someone said to me once, I wonder if Lazarus wanted to come out. I said, I doubt it.
I doubt it because we have more faith in death than hope in God’s promises – promises we have yet to see fulfilled.
I doubt it because, as we say in our funeral liturgy, “death is past, and pain is ended” for Lazarus, thanks be to God.
I doubt it because the darkness of the tomb is like a womb, enveloping him like a cozy blanket, caressing him gently, consoling him.
Does Lazarus really want to come out of that darkness, out into the light? Would we?
No matter what your answer is, though, God will keep calling you out. God will invite you to hear that this is not the way God wants it to be; that death is not what God intends for you.
Yet, we will stay tucked away in our dark tombs, steadfastly refusing to hope for what we cannot imagine, putting our faith in death, shrugging, saying, “Augh, Lord God – you know…”
We are persistent in our denial of God’s unfathomable love for the world God made, because if we believed it, we would have to act differently.
Beloved, come out. Come out and let the Spirit breathe life into those dry bones. Come out and live.
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