Out of Our Graves

April 6^th, 2014           “Out of Our Graves”         Rev. Heather Jepsen

Ezekiel 37:1-14 and John 11:1-46

          This morning’s readings are more like something out of the popular culture, than like something we might find here in church.  From a valley of bones that suddenly come back to life, to people literally walking out of their graves, this morning almost feels like an episode of “The Walking Dead”.  Zombies are definitely a part of our adventure this morning.

          We begin with Ezekiel, prophet and preacher to the nation of Israel.  The hand of the Lord comes upon him and the Spirit of God whisks him away to a valley full of bones.  The Lord asks “Can these bones live?” and Ezekiel gives the proper response, “God, you know.” 

          God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, to call to them, to demand that they come to life.  As Ezekiel does there is a great clatter and rattling as the bones connect together and become covered with sinew and flesh.  Suddenly he is surrounded by an army of what can only be called zombies.  People stand, as if alive, but they are without breath, without the Spirit.  Finally Ezekiel calls on the breath of life, the Spirit wind, and God’s ruah blows into the bodies of the people and life returns.

          The best part of this reading of course is the promise that God gives to the people.  “I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves.  I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.”  From the view outside of the church this sounds like talk of zombies, but when understood in our tradition we find the promise of new life, resurrection.

          People are popping out of graves in the gospel reading as well.  Here we find the famous story of Lazarus, unique to John’s gospel.  Mary and Martha and Lazarus are an odd family of sorts, living in Bethany on the edge of Jerusalem.  Jesus is friends of this family and he loves them.  When word reaches him that Lazarus is ill, Jesus hangs back a few days.  Gospel readers can’t help but wonder what Jesus is doing. 

          When Lazarus dies, Jesus finally travels back to Bethany.  The disciples are understandably nervous as the last visit to the area resulted in a near stoning for them.  The group arrives in Bethany to find a scene of mourning and weeping.  First Martha and then Mary greet Jesus with the same words, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  It is up to the reader to interpret whether these are statements of faith or statements of accusation and disappointment.  However they say it, the scene moves Jesus to tears.

          Finally they all head to the tomb and Jesus demands that it be opened.  Martha makes protest; not only at the smell but at the fact that already four days have passed.  The Jews believed that after four days the soul would have completed its journey to death and would no longer be lingering around the body.  After four days, Lazarus is as dead as the dry bones of Ezekiel. 

Jesus gives a guttural cry, “Come Out!” and once again we are back in zombie land as the dead man walks out of the tomb.  Still covered in the linen cloths, Lazarus looks like something from the mummy’s tomb as he stumbles into the light.  In the gospel of John it will be this act, the raising of Lazarus that is the nail in Jesus’ own coffin.

          One thing that I love about these readings is that they are so real and messy.  Often times, when we imagine stories from the Bible, we see those 1950s images from children’s story books.  Sepia toned and slightly fuzzy, with green grass and blue skies; that’s what Bible stories look like.  We can imagine these scenes in that sterile environment, and plenty of artists and preachers have, but that makes them so unreal to me.  My life isn’t a picture book, my life is real and messy, so that is the way that I am best able to relate to these readings.

          Dare with me, to really imagine Ezekiel’s experience in the valley of dry bones.  You are dropped somewhere in the desert and you are surrounded by bone piles.  You are stepping on femurs and scapulas as you try to avoid stepping on skulls.  This is a valley of death, a frightening place to be.  You call to the bones and with a great rattle and clatter suddenly you are surrounded by skeletons, all rib cages and gaping eye holes.  Call again and the bodies are covered with muscle tissue, like something out of an anatomy book.  Call again and finally there is flesh, but no life.  Finally you call the breath of God and are surrounded by people that live again.  Then what happens?  We can only imagine.

          The reading from John is also messy and scary.  Set the scene, at the graveside.  This is the cemetery, the land of death.  Jesus is overcome with emotion.  Not just a tear trickling down his cheek, but his body is wracked with sobs as he blows his nose into the sleeve of his cloak.  “See how he loved him.”  They roll back the stone and the stench is intense, not just the rotting flesh of Lazarus, but the smell of others who have been buried in that place.  People would have been throwing up.  Jesus yells, the corpse walks out, and I am certain that bystanders screamed in fear.  The dead walk, wrapped in the burial cloths.  It’s scary and unnatural.  No wonder the Pharisees set out to kill the man who brings the dead to life.

          Throughout both of these texts we find the promise of new life, but it is not a nice and neat package.  Sometimes we are like the zombies of Ezekiel, fleshly bodies that stand and wait for the breath of God to move through us.  Like mindless drones we go about our days, oblivious to the presence of God around us, oblivious to the ways we hurt ourselves and others.  We need God to breathe new life in us, to waken us from our zombie state, to bring us into reality.  We need God to pull us out of the tombs of our mundane existence, stumbling and squinting in the light like Lazarus.  Smelly and messy but real and alive.

The journey from death to life is frightening, as any experience of coming up out of a grave would be.  Coming out of the grave is hard work, and I think most of us prefer to stay buried.  In fact, we are really good at digging graves.  We are really good at burying ourselves.  Thankfully God is really good at pulling us out of those holes. 

Sometimes we put ourselves into graves by working too hard.  We do everything folks ask and then we find ourselves tried and broken.  We begin to resent the church; its committees and work days, its endless stream of commitments.  Sometimes we have let our faith die because we have worked ourselves to death.  We need God to lift us out of our graves of exhaustion, and to breathe into us a Spirit of new hope and faith.  We need God to plant in us a willingness to say “no” as well as a new energy to work.

In many ways our graves are much more frightening than that.  We have been busy crafting dark places of death and then placing pieces of our own hearts there.  We have been busy digging graves of shame, and we have been busy digging graves of selfishness.  We have covered ourselves with the dirt of guilt and we have covered ourselves with the dirt of fear.  We have let ourselves die in our grief, and we have let ourselves die in our hopelessness.  The promise of these texts is that God has come to pull us out of our graves, but we have to travel through piles of dirt to get out, we have to be willing to get messy, and to get real.

          The joy of our texts this morning is the promise of new life.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life, he brings us freedom and renewal.  But it is a messy business and that is one of the themes of Lent.  The life of faith can be dark and scary at times.  It doesn’t come easy, and more often than not it is a journey through mud and muck.  But it is the journey of a God who longs to unbind us from our sin and to let us go.  Thus says the Lord God, “I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.  I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.”  Thanks be to God for that promise of new life.  Amen.