Sunday Sermon: What God Hath Joined Together
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Pentecost Sunday
Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
One of the great joys every pastor gets to know is the joy that comes from officiating a ceremony of marriage. At least that’s how I’ve always felt about my role. That’s because I have seen it not so much as a responsibility I must discharge as a participant in a civil event, but more as privilege I have to participate in a sacred one.
If you’ve done as many weddings as I have, you come to know the traditional ceremony by heart; and in particular, the pronouncement of marriage, where at the end of the ceremony the minister proclaims: “What God hath joined together, let no one put asunder.” Those words are a reminder not only to the couple being married but also to everyone in attendance how the purpose of every marriage is to celebrate the work of God’s Holy Spirit, as the Spirit comes down upon the couple to make the two to become one in and for Christ.
But sadly, as we all know from the divorce statistics, not every marriage lives in to such a purpose. Not every marriage stays together. Some marriages are “put asunder” to use the language of the traditional marriage ceremony. And more times than not, it’s because not every couple is willing to do the hard work that comes from making their marriage all God intends for it to be. They forget to put Christ first in their marriage. They forget to keep themselves open to the Spirit’s presence and power. And as a result, they drift apart. But when God truly joins something together, there is nothing that can tear it apart, simply because of how God draws near to become a part of it, be it a marriage or a ministry initiative or even a church.
People who have a place for the Spirit of God make it through each day on the conviction that life is not random, but that God is in control. And whatever God brings to pass is something that will last forever and forever, Amen.
That’s what the prophet Ezekiel came to discover at a time in his life when he found himself in a most disconcerting place – a valley of dry bones. Ezekiel was a prophet who ministered during the time of the Babylonian Exile, about 600 years before Christ. The city of Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, and after having deposed the king and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, the Babylonians took with them the best and the brightest back to Babylon. And among those exiles was the prophet, Ezekiel.
What was groundbreaking about Ezekiel’s ministry to the exiles was his insistence that God’s Presence abided with them even in a faraway place like Babylon. Up to that time, there was a generally held belief among ancient people that a nation’s god was confined to the boundaries of that nation, sort of like those “Police Jurisdiction” signs you see in small towns today, which mark the boundaries wherein local law enforcement agencies conduct their work. Therefore, the question that was on the minds of the exiles in Babylon was, “Is God with us way over here in Babylon?” “Can God’s power be known in this distant place?” “Can God keep us together and see us through this calamitous time?”
Those are questions many of us know all too well, because they mirror so plainly the questions that are on our hearts also. “Is God with me in this time of loss?” “Can I count on God in this place of stress?” “Does God see me in this place of pain?” You don’t have to be too far away from familiar turf to identify with the anguish of exile. Any place that seems bereft of hope can be that place of deportation – that place to which you feel you have been banished to a life of meaninglessness and insignificance. All of us at some point fall prey to those feelings, even those of us who consider ourselves to be strong in our faith. It was even that way for Ezekiel.
You look at how the book of Ezekiel begins, and there is God’s prophet, summoning his people to courage and hope. But as time goes by in Babylon, even Ezekiel begins to wonder if maybe God has given up on His people. Like many of us who have this uncanny knack of holding out hope in the face of the most discouraging circumstances, there is always a point when you ask yourself the question, “What’s the use?”
Ezekiel had reached precisely that point in the text I read for you today. As he explains it, the “hand of the LORD” had led him to the middle of a valley, full of dry bones. Most likely, this valley was a battlefield, and the bones were of those who had fallen in battle. All around Ezekiel were signs and indicators of death.
Which leads us to ask the question, “Why would the hand of the LORD put Ezekiel in such a place?” Might it have been because the exiles had given up hope of ever returning to Jerusalem and were “making no bones about it,” pun intended? Might it have been because they had been hounding Ezekiel about how God had forgotten them in the land of exile? Might it have been because God wanted Ezekiel to see that he was capable of bringing them, dead as they were, back to life so that Ezekiel might be renewed in his ministry to the exiles?
I trust that you know that the situation described in this text applies even to our day. All around us are people who have given up hope of their lot in life ever improving. For them everything just seems so dry.
So, where are the dry areas in your life? Do you believe God is capable of bringing new life to those places of hopelessness? Are you willing to allow Him to do what only He can do in that area of your life? Do you trust Him for a miracle?
I love how Ezekiel answers when that question is posed to him. “Son of man, can these bones live? And how does Ezekiel respond? “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” “You alone know.”
Please understand; Ezekiel is not being weak or doubtful in his response. He’s not playing his cards close to the vest with God, as if he’s afraid to go out on a limb as to God’s ability to do the impossible. No, on the contrary, Ezekiel confesses that God is the Sovereign LORD, and as such, God would be the only one able to do such a thing. To Ezekiel, it was not a matter of God’s ability to bring life out of death and hope out of despair; it was God’s willingness. Would God want to do such a thing? And the manner in which Ezekiel answered the Spirit’s question was a faithful way of opening himself and his people to what he hoped with every fiber of his being that God might be gracious to do. “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” In other words, if you don’t do it, no one else will. And with that confession of faith on Ezekiel’s part, something truly amazing begins to take place. Bones come together. Muscle, flesh, and skin become formed upon them. The wind of God’s Spirit sweeps through them. They come to life. They stand to their feet. They become a vast army. “And one day,” God says to Ezekiel, “this is what I will do for my people.”
Sometimes God has to bring us to a place, a valley, where we find ourselves at the end of our own resources and where the only hope we have is to rely on a God who alone can bring life out of death. In fact, the only reason that we don’t experience more of God’s restoration in our lives is because we maintain the delusion that restoration somehow is within our control. But it is not; restoration is not in our control, and the sooner we learn that lesson of faith, the more we will experience the transforming power of God in each and every area of our lives.
In his book, Believe and Belong, Bruce Larson tells about a gigantic statue of Atlas that stands in the entrance of the RCA building on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The statue portrays Atlas as an amazingly proportioned man who, with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders. And yet, even though he is the most powerfully built man on earth, Atlas can barely stand under his burden. As Larson observes, “That’s one way to live; trying to carry the world on your shoulders.”
But Larson also points out how on the other side of Fifth Avenue is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. And there, behind the altar, is a little shrine of the boy Jesus. He is perhaps eight or nine years old, and with no effort he is holding the world in one hand. “We have a choice,” Larson says. “We can choose to try to carry the world on our shoulders, or we can say, ‘I give up, Lord; here is my life. I give you my world.’”
If this morning you are “bone weary” from your efforts at making your life hold together, why not turn that responsibility over to God, as He has drawn near to you in His Son Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit? Why not come to the realization that only God knows how the future will play out, because God is in control of the future, and that by yielding your life to Him, you can connect with God’s purpose and God’s power in a life-giving way? Why not recognize that whereas you and I tend to focus on the pitfalls that are all around us, God always considers only the possibilities?
“Can these bones live?” “Can your spirit be restored?” “Can your soul be saved?” It can, if you allow God in Christ to do that which only He can do, because what God joins together, even a bunch of bones in a dry valley, nothing will truly ever put asunder.