Advent Surprises

 

Ezekiel 37:1-14

John 11:25-26

12/05/21

Candle of Peace

               This passage from Ezekiel was written when the Israelites were in exile.  It is a promise to them that they will return from exile, that they will have life again, that things will return.  We know that this took an entire generation.  It was not the same people, for the most part, who were returning.  That meant that this promise of new life would not be brought to fulfillment, to fruition during the lifetimes of most of the people.  Still they were invited to trust that this promise, made to a community, and NOT to individuals, was true, and would happen for the Israelites.  They were invited to delight and celebrate and trust in the wonderful news that Israel would be restored, even though they, themselves, would not be part of that restoration and would not be around to see it, witness it, live it.  I think in many ways, the people of the time had a much better long-vision approach.  They could rest in these hopes for their children, and their children’s children, and find acceptance, joy, and contentment in that, even when they had to have known it would not be for themselves. 

               For us, Advent is a time of waiting for that new life to come to us, waiting for God to come to us in amazing and new ways.  It is often also considered a time of repentance, like lent.  We are invited to take the time of waiting to work on being the best that we can be so that when we encounter God with Us, Emmanuel, anew, we can present to God the best of ourselves.  As such, then, it is a time of deep self-reflection: which in turn can often be seen as an invitation into a rather dark place.  The darkening of the days, the shortening of the days during Advent mirrors this call or invitation which, when done seriously and with intention, will take us back through a history that includes regrets, losses, darkness.  Serious self-reflection invites us into parched, lonely periods in our spiritual journeys.  Looking deeply and truly at ourselves can lead into times of doubt, hopelessness, depression, fear and anxiety.  But we are invited into this dry valley during Advent, to do the work of preparation in anticipation of the Christmas, the new life, the resurrection of the bones, that is to come.

A poem written by Dempsy Calhoun reflects this.      

Bone

 

Bone lay scattered and artifactual

Wind-rowed like dead branches

Whose tree bodies repeat the desiccation

All hope bleached and lost

Living moisture evaporated

 

Calcified memories of what was

Or seeds of what could be

Wandering shards of vessels

That once thrummed with pure energy

Where honor and dishonor wrestled

 

Stripped of living water to walk the hills

Needing only gravity to line the valley

 

It was never about the bones anyway

Rather a glimpse of pure power

A reminder of who's in charge of restoration

Real hope lies in the Source

(Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year A, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.)

Apparently when you look at the bones of a people, like in archeological digs, you can tell so much about those people: age, gender, general health, diet, diseases, injuries, habits, and what their diet was based on the density of those bones.  So, the invitation here, with the combination of this scripture during the advent call to self-reflection is to look at your spiritual bones to see what they reveal about you.  What do your spiritual bones tell you about your spiritual diet, about your age in terms of faith formation, about your spiritual health?  What do they say about what you have gone through, where your spiritual injuries have been?  Would they show habits of prayer and reflection, of conversation with God?  Would they show the gifts of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?  It invites us into the question, “Can these bones live?”  And to genuinely reflect on that.

We hear from the passage that God’s breath plays a major role in these bones returning to life.  Remember that in Hebrew, the word “ruach” means breath, spirit and wind.  It is the breath of God that breathes life into everything.  As the commentator from Feasting on the Word said it,

            “Ezekiel's vision is given for a people who have lost heart, who are suffering a death of the spirit, a living death in exile in a foreign land. Their temple has been destroyed, their holy city plundered, their leaders maimed and put in chains, their soldiers put to the sword, their young men and women either killed or dragged off into a foreign land. Ezekiel witnesses the soul of his people gradually wither and die, becoming as lifeless as a valley of dry bones. Can these bones live? That is what God asks.

This vision is held up again today, when so many in the world have had their own experience of dry bones, literally and metaphorically. Our earth has been fashioned into massive graveyards of dry bones, transforming valleys into vales of desolation—from Darfur and the Congo and Zimbabwe to Myanmar and Pakistan and Iraq, from the gang slayings and the drug wars in our cities to all those places lacking food or drink or clothing or shelter or any respect for life. Not only is there the physical toll people continue to pay, but also the spiritual death that poverty, natural disasters, and genocide exact from people to reduce them to a state of dry bones. Can these bones live?

Today we hear a promise only God can give. God tells the prophet to speak to these bones, saying: "Thus says the Lord God: I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live" (v. 5). God promises not only sinews and flesh and skin, but, most importantly, God calls the breath to come from the four winds and breathe upon the slain. So it happens. This breath is the spirit of God, the life-giving ruach God breathed into the first human creature in the garden.” (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year A, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.)

We are invited to be part of this self-work.  I will tell you, when people talk about things that have upset them, they usually focus on the other person.  “So and so did this.”  But a time of Advent is a call instead to look inward.  “I participated in this problem by doing x.”  “I contributed to this division, or this chaos, or this schism in this way.”  That self-reflection is the turning that we are called to during advent.

Advent is a time of waiting, of anticipation.  Advent is a time of reflection and preparation so that we may be the most whole, best that we can be to be present to God, With Us, Emmanuel, when God comes. 

Finally, Advent is also a time of great surprise. 

This story from Ezekiel is a vision, a metaphor for the life that God brings where life appears to be completely absent, completely gone.  But this story is put into such a completely shocking image… bones knitting back together, sinews and tendons reattaching themselves, the dead coming alive… These images are shocking and disturbing because the experience of the people to the presence of God is also that surprising, that shocking, and that unexpected.  Even as we wait for Christmas with the belief that we know what the baby looks like (after all aren’t we just celebrating something that already happened a long, long time ago?), that we know what to expect, what to anticipate; the promise is there that each time God comes, and God comes again and again and again, that it will be every bit as shocking and even terrifying in its incredibleness, it’s awesomeness, its unexpectedness, as this scene from Ezekiel. 

We hear in Mary’s Magnificat that the order of the world will be flipped on its head.  We are told God “has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

 He has brought down rulers from their thrones

    but has lifted up the humble.

 He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.

 He has helped his servant Israel,

    remembering to be merciful”

And today in Ezekiel we hear this promise again.  The dead will be raised again.  Breath will move within those who have no breath.  But what does this mean for us?  Our bones will have life again.  The unkind will act in kindness towards one another.  The unforgiving will learn how to forgive.  The unseeing will see.  The unhearing will hear.  Those who are angry will learn compassion.  Those filled with hate will learn grace.  Those who lie and gossip will have tongues only for truth and confession.  The blaming and accusing will only reflect on their own contributions to discord.  All of this and more will happen.  This is what this new breath is about.  This is what new life invites.  This is what the wait for God’s coming promises. 

We may not see it in our lifetimes.  Like Israel’s people, we may have to wait for these promises until the next generation.  But we are still called to trust that they will come.  And we are invited to be part of it as we step into our own self-reflection, our own inner work, our own inventory of our own bones: where they are dry, where they are brittle, and where they need the breath of God to bring them to life.

These are the unexpected surprises of Advent.  It starts with you.  It starts with me.  We prepare and wait, repent and step into new life together, create the unexpected miracles of new life and new relationship once again.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.