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Jesus transforms our familiar places

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Sermon Notes for 041016
Title: Jesus transforms our familiar places
Text: John 21:1-19     Also: Acts 9:1-6

Jesus meets us where we are, as we are, but does not leave us or the place unchanged.
When we encounter the resurrected Christ, we will be transformed, if we don’t run away.

The notes below are prepared in advance in a process of reflection on the text.
They do not represent a manuscript of the sermon.

Listen to the sermon audio here.

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Jesus transforms our familiar places.

Where do you go, in reality or in your imagination, when you feel lost and don’t know where to turn? What are your safe places, your happy places, your sanctuaries? Where do you feel most comfortable, most at home?

For the earliest disciples, one of these places was on the water, in their fishing boats. Here they knew what to do – so well they didn’t even have to think about it. You know how it feels to get into that zone where muscle memory takes over and your subconscious can guide you while your conscious mind takes a break from everything? This is what happens when we drive down the highway and realize we don’t remember the last 10 miles. Often it is engaging in some kind of physical activity – gardening, yard or house work, a hobby like playing an instrument, painting, wood working. So there is a physical location, and often an activity of some kind. And there are the relationships that exist (or not) in these places and activities. The people you know, with whom you work or play, with whom you share memory, story, history.

When we don’t know where else to go, we go there. How often do people journey back to their childhood homes, in person, in memory, and in dream, to rehearse, recall, and relive formative moments? “Perhaps,” we think, “the people, places and activities that formed me once will re-form me now that I’m feeling dis-integrated.”

Encounters with Jesus, and with the God we encounter through him, can be disorienting. They can dis-integrate our self-understanding and the values that provide a foundation for our lives. The messages around and within us say to build walls and separate good from bad. God says all that I have made are good. We are taught to distinguish friend from enemy – to love the one and hate the other. God says to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us. We behave as though we can, should, or must perform with righteousness and perfection so that God will love us. God says that we are beloved because God made us, and that any good actions flow from within us out of this reservoir of knowing we are loved.

Disorienting.

And our world tells us Y.O.L.O.  – You Only Live Once! Get everything you can here and now, because this is all that counts. God tells us that death does not win, that life and love are bigger than death. We live in fear. And the Risen Jesus invites us to live in hope and faith instead.

Disorienting, indeed.

And so we go fishing, because we don’t really know what else to do. We stay busy, doing what we know, what is comfortable and feels concrete and solid.

And today’s story tells us this is absolutely OK, because Jesus will come and find us there.

It also says that Jesus will not just leave us alone. Jesus will transform us, and our familiar places.

The 4 resurrection encounters between Jesus and the disciples occur in familiar places. First Jesus appears to Mary Magdelene among the tombs where they had laid Jesus’ body. Mary thus becomes the “Apostle to the Apostles”. Next Jesus appears behind locked doors in an unspecified but familiar home (perhaps the home of the Upper Room in Jerusalem). Then eight days later Jesus appears to them there again, this time with Thomas present. And the final story takes place in Galillee, at the Sea of Tiberias where Jesus first met Simon, Andrew, James and John at their fishing boats and called them to follow him and become “fishers of men.”

All three locations were places of comfort, places of history with Jesus and with one another. They were the places that these disciples might be reminded of their previous encounters with Jesus and the way things used to be.

What are those places for you? Where might you go to remember the way things used to be? What places represent and remind you of your previous encounters with Jesus? Perhaps it is a church campground. Or your childhood church home, or your grandparents’ house, or even here, in this very space. When you arrive in those places, in this place, are you transported to an earlier time and suddenly surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses? Do you see, hear, smell and touch the familiar and have your faith undergirded and your heart comforted during times of distress because of the great heritage and legacy that enfolds you?

IF so, then you understand what the apostles were doing. They were going back to what they knew. Even after they encounter the risen Jesus twice, these guys still don’t really know what to do with themselves, so they, perhaps in stereotypical guy fashion, go fishing.

Let’s pause for another moment and consider this.

These are people who have journeyed with Jesus for three years. He has been in their homes. They have heard and believed his teaching. He has given them power over forces of darkness – power to support healing and transformation in the lives of their neighbors. They witnessed his crucifixion, saw his body laid in the tomb, and now have met him, touched him, eaten with him risen from the dead. And they go fishing. Granted, many a true angler will say that few places bring them closer to God than on the water, focused and attuned to the rhythms of nature. Be that as it may, I don’t think this is what’s going on here.

They have yet to capture (or be captured by…) a vision for their future life and ministry together. And in the absence of a new vision, they just keep doing what they’ve always done. In their previous relationship with Jesus, they were accustomed to him leading the action, and then delegating specific assignments to them. “OK, Peter, I want you to go north, while James and John go south.”

They lacked not only the vision, but the power and the organization to carry out the vision. They had not as yet received the Great Commission about which we read in Matthew 28. They do not understand themselves to be empowered to take initiative in bringing the kingdom of God about which Jesus preached so frequently and for which he taught them to pray. They are still relying on Jesus to initiate and guide all of the work. The Holy Spirit’s anointing, though mentioned by Jesus in John 20:22, has not yet fully come upon them.

In some ways we may be like these disciples just a few weeks after Easter. We have had experiences of Jesus. He has taught us and led us, but we are not sure how to take the initiative. We lack the confidence to forge ahead, trusting that God’s power of resurrection and transformation will be available when we need it. We have celebrated, rejoiced, and worshiped the risen Christ, and now we so easily slip back into our old familiar places, with their activities and relationships still intact.

But the good news and the bad news is that Jesus transforms our familiar places, and the activities and relationships we know there. Jesus does not leave us alone once we have given our lives to him. He makes these old places new, and in the process seeks to make us new.

Perhaps we are like the disciples in another way. We return to the old and familiar, but things don’t work for us the same way anymore. Now that we have encountered the Risen Christ, we simply aren’t able to go back to the way things used to be. We are different, and we now recognize that the world is different, even if we don’t quite know what to do about it. We cast our nets like usual, but catch nothing. Jesus has ruined us for the old ways of being and doing. They no longer satisfy as they once did. The familiar places are transformed, because we are transformed.

And now what? I wish there were three simple steps we could take that would put things back in order. We won’t go back to how things were. The past is gone, never to return. What we do have is practices that can put us in a better posture to receive what God has for us next.

  • Keep showing up. That sounds simple because it is simple. As we saw earlier, it is ok and good and right to return to those familiar places, just don’t expect things to be as they once were. Which brings us to practice #2.
  • Open your heart and mind to something new, or to doing the old things in new ways. If we keep expecting the old ways to work, we will continue to be disappointed. Jesus calls us to something new. He proclaims, “I make all things new!”
  • Do some new things, even if they don’t seem to make sense, or even seem silly. This story represents the second time in the gospels that these professional fishermen had worked all night but caught nothing. Along comes Jesus, who is not a fisherman, and tells them, “Try casting your net on the other side.” Try the opposite of what you’ve been doing. Try it upside down or backwards. Risk failure. Risk looking foolish.

We find ourselves on familiar ground, doing familiar things, but not getting the results we need or want. We look around and realize that though we may not know fully how to walk forward into the future, we cannot go back to the past. That is at times unsettling and even scary, which is why we return to the familiar places. The risen Christ will meet us there. He will meet us here, and he transform our familiar places, and us along with them, so that we can work together to usher in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, right here in our own communities.

Some Thoughts on Repentance

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Last Sunday I shared some very personal reflections on my own practice of repentance. (see: http://kengcrawford.com/2012/03/05/no-one-is-beyond-hope/ ) Repentance is not just about guilt over big sins. It is also our daily humility to realize that we are not all we are created and called to be, and to confess that to ourselves, God, and one another. We admit that we fell short (a literal definition of ‘sin’ is ‘to fall short’ or ‘to miss the mark’). We ask forgiveness and make amends where to do so would not cause greater harm. This is difficult. We feel stupid and embarrassed or worse when we have to admit that we aren’t perfect. I think one of the absolute best things I do to strengthen my marriage is return to Laura if I have been short tempered and say, “I’m sorry. That’s not who I want to be or how I want to treat you. What I meant to say was…” It’s not easy to do, but it gets easier each time. Like many things, repentance gets easier with practice. We’ll always need to do it, so we might as well get on with it.

You may have also heard me say, “I’m not mean or vindictive or hateful. I can be short sighted, distracted, or stupid. But if I do or say something that you experience as hurtful, it’s not motivated by a desire to hurt, but by one of those other things. That may not ease the sting, but hopefully it eases the reconciliation. And hopefully you’ll be willing to say, “I felt hurt/angered/etc. by what you said/did/failed-to-do.” I may not like to hear that at first, but I certainly do want to hear it.

The fact that others have seemingly chosen to ‘forgive and forget’ does not absolve us of the responsibility of confession, repentance and restoration. The fact is that God chooses to not hold our sins against us – “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). We are not thereby freed from the need to confess and repent before God. Our sin, and our guilt and brokenness over it, is a barrier between ourselves and God. Remember how you felt when as a child you did something wrong but were afraid to come clean. The kinder and more loving others were, the more you hurt. The barrier was on your side, not theirs, and you were the one who had to act, had to apologize, in order to be freed to receive the love that they had for you. The same is true of our relationships with God and one another, and even with ourselves.

People often ask what is different about followers of Jesus. Part of what should be different is that we understand and practice grace and mercy in a particular way. Paul tells us, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That proves God’s love for us,” (Romans 5:8) and “Having been reconciled to God through Christ, we have also been given the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). What God has given us – grace, mercy, forgiveness – we also are to give one another and the world. I am to love you while you are yet sinners. We are to love the world while they are yet sinners. We are to practice reconciliation, which starts with the offended, not with the offender. We don’t wait for others to apologize before we forgive, because God did not wait for us to repent before we were redeemed and forgiven (restored into relationship). This is not easy – perhaps not possible without God’s help through the Holy Spirit. It is not what our flesh wants to do, but it is what the Spirit asks of us.

Does this mean we put ourselves in situations knowing others will hurt us? Not necessarily. We are not called to remain victims in abusive or dangerous situations. We are called to seek reconciliation before writing others off and washing our hands of them. Staying in an abusive situation enables the sin of the abuser and is not an act of love, forgiveness, mercy or grace. Moreover, when we separate ourselves from that unhealthy situation we are better able to practice these virtues. The space gives us the freedom to love, and gives the other person freedom to move toward healing.

One reason we need Christian community is because this work is so difficult – we need to be reminded, encouraged, challenged, and helped to forgive and to repent. We proclaim a God who loves us enough to experience the incarnation and crucifixion. Do we practice that faith? What does our treatment of others say about what we really believe? That we are worthy of God’s forgiveness, but no one is worthy of ours? We pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Luke 11:4); we are asking God to make the forgiveness we receive conditional on and proportional to the forgiveness we give. How frightening is that for you?

We need to practice both forgiveness and repentance – they are two sides of the same coin. If we practice one without the other, we are really just trying to manipulate God and others. We are not acting honestly and we are not acting in love. If I consistently forgive others but never repent, then I am presuming an arrogant superiority – they need to be forgiven, but I don’t. If I am repentant but never forgiving, then again I am being arrogant – “I deserve to be forgiven, but no one else does”. Humility is needed for both repentance and forgiveness, which is perhaps why humility is so often called for. It may also be why repentance and forgiveness are so difficult for us. Again, Paul points us toward Jesus who leads the way: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” (2 Philippians 2:5-8) Notice here that humility is not a mask for self-loathing or self-negation. To “empty oneself” is to release self-importance, to literally “not be full of oneself.” Humility must not be mistaken for self-abnegation – it is rather the fullest affirmation of our true identity as God’s beloved children.

Micah 6:8 tells us that what God desires of us is that we do justice [together with God], embrace mercy [together with God], and walk humbly [together] with God. Justice and Mercy are the two hands of humility with which we practice God’s love in the world. Any notion of Justice that lacks Mercy is false, just as is any notion of Mercy that lacks some expression of Justice. Forgiveness is not contrary to God’s justice – it is the very nature of God’s justice.

We cannot experience the fullness of God’s love without passing through our own valley of repentance – which feels for many like a shadow of death. God’s whole creation calls out to us proclaiming God’s glory and our beauty, begging for us to let ourselves be loved, and to love all around us. Repentance is a vital step in that process. Without it we can’t be ready for the things to come – cannot be ready for the blessings that God has for us or the ways that God desires to work in and through us. God has dreams for us, but until we repent, we won’t be able to dream them, much less live them.

2 Chronicles 7 vs11-22 – When it’s time for a turn-around

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Sermon Notes:

What precedes the text:     Solomon

  • asks for wisdom above all
  • gathers support from others with resources and expertise
  • builds the temple
  • asks God to hear the prayers of all people
  • asks God to forgive and restore when the Israelites sin and are defeated, become captives, or have droughts
  • Sacrifices 22k oxen and 120k sheep – hosts a great feast!

The people said:    “For he is good. His steadfast love endures forever.” (2 Chron 5:13)

If my people, Called by my name

  • Humble themselves
  • Pray
  • Seek my face
  • Turn from their wicked ways

THEN I will..

  • Hear from heaven
  • Forgive their sin
  • Heal their land

1. God will hear…

The first of these is kind of strange. God promises to hear the prayers of God’s people. Does this suggest that at other times God is unable or chooses not to hear? Would that limit God’s power? Or might we liken it to a parent responding to an insolent child by saying, “I can’t hear you when you speak to me with that tone of voice and posture. I ask you to speak to me respectfully.” Does that literally mean that the parent can’t hear? No. it is rather that the experience of the parent is dominated by the negative energy of the bratty attitude coming from the child. Perhaps this is what the author has in mind in thinking about God hearing or not hearing us.

Or, maybe this kind of hearing is linked with an active response. If I am in genuine need and cry out for help, and you do not respond, then you have not truly heard me, even if you did receive the auditory stimulation of my voice. To hear is to be moved to act, to take in the message and allow it to move one on a deeper level. Perhaps this is what it means when we say God hears our prayers. When we ask selfishly, God does not hear. When we ask a prayer that will bring harm to others, God does not hear. When we ask something that is contrary to God’s will, God does not hear, at least not in this second sense. This seems to be the message of 1 John 5:14-15 And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.

The phrase “hear from heaven” is used by Solomon 7 times in 2 Chronicles 6 in his prayer to God.

The Psalmist repeats the call for God to hear, answer, be gracious and revive. (Psalms 4, 17, 39, 54, 61, 84, 102, 143) We need to understand that this first promise of God is not a statement that before God was not hearing, but rather that these actions of ours move us toward a humble posture of relationship in which we can experience God hearing us.

2. Forgive…

Here too, the issue is not that God is otherwise unforgiving, or that our actions result in God deciding to forgive or being made to forgive. It is rather that until we take the necessary steps in our own lives we are not free to experience God’s forgiveness. Recall this affirmation from Exodus 34:
6 The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And again, in Numbers 14: 18 “The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.’ 19 Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.” 20 Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked; 21 nevertheless—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— 22 none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it.

These texts demonstrate Israel’s faith in a God who desires to forgive. They also make clear that forgiveness does not prevent the natural consequences of sin from unfolding. God forgives, but we (and others) may still receive the harvest of what we (and others) have sown.

3. Heal their land…

Finally, God promises to heal. This third step is about the journey back from the brokenness that comes as a natural result of our sin. We do not know why, but God seems not to prevent injury to the innocent. Sin has consequences, often unintended, and often to innocent bystanders. What God promises in this prayer is to bring healing to the land – the Hebrew word ha erets connotes both the physical geography and its inhabitants. In a time of violence and greed, people and the rest of the natural world are injured. God promises a healing to flow that will bring restoration and renewal.

This is a wonderful vision – God will hear. God will forgive. God will heal. We want and need this, in our personal lives, in our families, in churches, communities, nations, and among nations and peoples in the world. Solomon asked that God would do this, and that the temple might be an earthly focal point for this encounter between God and human kind. There is not mention here that it is the only place, and Solomon clearly affirms the Hebrew understanding that God cannot be limited or contained by any building, place, people, or even by the heavens we see.

The text also makes clear that we have a role to play, not only in the brokenness, but also in the redemption. God says, “If my people will…” This promise is given to the people of God who were a nation. This is not about political boundaries or ideologies. This promise is given to whoever is called by God’s name. Everyone called by God’s Name. 1 Peter explodes this notion by clearly including the Gentile followers of Jesus, establishing a parallel to the story in 2 Chronicles 6-7, now envisioning God building us together as a temple for God’s self – a spiritual, mystical temple not made with hands (cf 2 Cor 5:1?)

If my people will…

  • Humble themselves
  • Pray
  • Seek my face
  • Turn from their wicked ways

Notice that turning from wicked ways (i.e. repentance) is the fourth item in this list. Does that suggest a necessary order in the process? Not necessarily, but perhaps. It is something to consider – i.e. what are the steps toward repentance? Can we just jump right into repentance, or do some other things precede? I suspect that repentance is like forgiveness and love of enemy or love of neighbor as self – it is something toward which we are directly called, but we can’t get there directly. So, what can we see are three steps toward full repentance? Humility, prayer, seeking after God.

1. Humble themselves. This is an active discipline that requires our attention. It is about our thoughts and attitudes toward other people. Our humility is a posture before self, others, the world and God. It is our awareness that:

  • We do not know everything
  • We are not the center of everything
  • We are not in control
  • I.E. We are not GOD

2. Pray – Prayer also is an active spiritual discipline – it is attending to the spiritual conversation continually in process between God and the world – its like entering a chat line, picking up a party line, or tuning in to a CB or ham radio channel.

  • We have to turn the radio on.
  • We have to tune in.
  • We have to be quiet and listen.

This posture of prayer follows the openness that grows from our humility. Once we assume this receptivity, then we are able to understand more deeply God’s heart for us and for the world. We see the gap between all God desires and all that is. Our hearts break, not because of all that has been done to us, but because of all that we, individually and collectively, have done.

3. Seek my face. We realize through our humility and openness in prayer that we need God more than anything else. We yearn for God. The Psalmist captures our heart: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so we long for you O God.” (Psalm 42:1); “Who have I in heaven but you, and having you, I desire nothing else.” (Psalm 73:25) “As a servant looks to the hand of his master, and a maid to the hand of her mistress, so we look to you.” (Psalm 123:2). We seek God’s face – God’s presence, God’s radiance. We seek God looking upon us as a loving parent.

I don’t know really whether these things MUST precede repentance – a turning away from our wicked ways – but they certainly will help in the ongoing process of turning away. Repentance of this sort is not a onetime thing. Our wickedness has a depth and breadth to it. It is not just a series of actions, but a complex of ideas, habits and systems. The turning away is a long, slow, laborious process that will continually require us rehearsing those other three steps in order for us to maintain our sense of who we are in God. Humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face. Repeat. Continually.

Returning to the text of chapter 6 of 2 Chronicles, we hear a list when it may be time for a turn-around.

  • If someone sins against another
  • When your people Israel, having sinned against you, are defeated before an enemy
  • When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you
  • If there is famine in the land, if there is plague, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar;
  • If their enemies besiege them in any of the settlements of the lands;
  • Whatever suffering, whatever sickness there is
  • If your people go out to battle against their enemies
  • If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to a land far or near;

When we know we have sinned against someone, then it’s time for a turn-around.
When there is suffering or sickness, then it’s time for a turn-around.
When we are overcome by our adversaries, then it’s time for a turn-around.
When the things that sustain life are in short supply, then it’s time for a turn-around.
When we are up against great obstacles, then it’s time for a turn-around.
When we find ourselves in captivity, then it’s time for a turn-around.

And when it’s time for a turn-around, then we know what we need to do:
Humble ourselves. Pray. Seek God’s face. Turn from our wicked ways.

Sermon Study for Sunday 04102011 – Ezekiel 37 vs1-14 Repent and Turn back to God: Can these dry bones live?

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Season Theme Scripture – Acts 3:19 Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, 21 who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.

Call to Worship – Psalm 130 –
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive
     to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
     Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
     so that you may be revered.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
     and in his word I hope;

6 my soul waits for the Lord
     more than those who watch for the morning,
     more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
     For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
     and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities. 
BACKGROUND SCRIPTURES –
John 11: 1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” …
11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” …
32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” 38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Romans 8: 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
SERMON SCRIPTURE –
Ezekiel 37: 1 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 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 you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
Repent and Turn back to God: Can these dry bones live?
Notes for reflection: Sometimes things look dead, but they are not. Other times thing are dead, and look hopeless, but again, they are not. As we heard in 1 Samuel 16, man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. And Jesus said, “Unless a seed fall to the ground and die, it can not bear fruit.” (John 12:24)
1. When have you experienced something restored to new life? Have you ever restored a car, a house, a piece of antique furniture?
2. Do you recognize ‘a diamond in the rough’ – that thing which is truly valuable, but just needs to have the life breathed back into it?
3. What in your life looks like a lost cause? A relationship? A job? Health? A project? An organization?
4. When things look and feel hopeless, where are we looking as our source of hope? In what do we hope?

5. Read the story of Elijah, the widow of Zarephath and her son – http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/1-kings/17.html. What does it say to you? How can you serve another in your time of need?