Life in the Valley

Ezekiel 37: 1-14; John 11: 1-45

FPC; 3-9-08

 

Kurtz, the main character in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, is asked at the end how it was in the Africa of colonialism and slave trading. "The horror!  Oh, the horror!" Kurtz mutters.[1]  As we look at the valley of dry bones, perhaps that is our refrain as well.

Is it just me, or does that scene conjure in your minds pictures of the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia of the 1970s?    “The horror!  Oh, the horror!”

Can life come to the valley?  “Can these dry bones live?” 

If I was unfamiliar with the story’s ending, my human inclination would be to say in response, “No, dry bones cannot live; not when the vultures are circling and swooping.”  Death cannot be overcome.  There is no hope for a future life.

Ezekiel delivers this story to exiled Israel for whom hope is surely absent.  There is no future life as a community; no future in the homeland; no future as God’s people. 

But then, God acts to restore, renew, recreate, and redeem the community.  God breathes God’s breath upon those dry, sun bleached bones.  Ezekiel listens as the sound of rattling, reconnecting bones echoes across the valley.  He looks and sees that they are being covered with flesh.  Wondrously, the bones begin to move.  The community becomes alive! 

Has God surrendered his promises to God’s people?  Ezekiel offers a resounding “no”.  The narrative paints a picture, not of revival or resuscitation, but of resurrection. 

But still communities are asking that question: Is there hope for a new beginning?  Will grief and despair permanently imprison our spirits?  Can these dry bones live?

The Chapel Hill community weighed down with grief is asking the question.  I imagine, I don’t know with certainty, but I imagine many of those 2,000 young adults who gathered the other night for a candlelight memorial vigil are echoing the statement of Mary and Martha: 

“Lord, if you had been here….” 

Martha directs that blunt and honest statement to Jesus and then she offers this statement of faith:  ‘”Even now I know that God will give whatever you ask of him.”  Jesus responds: “Your brother will rise again.”  “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”  Jesus says to Martha and to us: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me even though they die shall live.  The ones who live and believe in me shall never die.  Do you believe this?” Martha responds: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God…” 

The community needs some Marthas!  When the stench of death is moving across a place called Bethany; as people sit side by side in a place called “the pit”, with eyes welling up with tears and hearts swelling with despair, someone needs to fill the role of Martha.  Someone needs to profess or embody the Christian faith. “Even now I know that God will give…hope, life and resurrection.  Lord, I believe.” 

I know a Martha.  Actually his name is Alex Evans.  He is a former seminary classmate of mine.  For many years, he has been pastor of the Blacksburg Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg, Virginia and also chaplain for the Blacksburg Police Department. 

After the shootings and deaths that occurred in April of last year, Alex was the one who, throughout the night, called and notified family members of the death of their loved ones. 

A month or so after the shootings, Alex Evans and his wife, Ginger, the DCE of the Blacksburg church, wrote these words to their PCUSA family.

“In the recent weeks, we have been overwhelmed with the unimaginable atrocity — and its companions, deep pain and tremendous grief — that arrived in our university, town, and church family in Blacksburg, VA.

We have encountered those common stages that are associated with death: shock, stunning disbelief, anger, heartache, even bargaining. And we have also been challenged to carry on, to find a way forward. We are not “moving on” yet. How can we? We are not back to normal. Is there “normal” after something like this? We know we are forever affected by such pain and tragedy

In the midst of our heartache and loss, we have been absolutely overwhelmed, too, with a new sense of church.

From the first day, we began receiving emails, notes, calls of care and prayer and support. Through the first week, representatives from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, who literally and figuratively brought the compassion, care, and resources of our denomination to Blacksburg, encouraged us. Through all the days, we have heard from individuals and congregations from across the presbytery, the synod, the General Assembly, and the globe.

While we have confronted death and loss, while we have grieved and held funerals for college students and professors, while we have prayed for the healing of the wounded and counseled with dedicated police and their spouses, we have been so well prayed for, cared for, sustained, and blessed by so many others. This has been most heartening and helpful.

Ours is a wonderful church — locally and globally… And we have a new and keen sense of what it means to be the Body of Christ, the PCUSA.”[2]

That’s what the church is called to be and do.  The church is to be Martha for the world, people who profess and embody the Christian faith.  The church is to be the instrument through which God’s life-giving breath is breathed upon dry bones and into hearts that sag with sadness.   

At first glance, these are stories of tragedy and horror.  But we know how these stories end.  They end with resurrection hope and life.  These are Easter stories. 

“Lazarus, come out of the tomb.”  He came out.  He came out of the tomb so that Jesus could enter the tomb.  In John’s gospel, the raising of Lazarus is the event that triggers Jesus’ arrest and later his crucifixion and entombment. 

Lazarus came out of the tomb so that Jesus could enter the tomb. 

We know the ending of that story too.  Every Lord’s Day we remember and celebrate the good news that with God endings are not final.  Death does not have the final word.  The final word is life. 

As Christ’s body in the world, it is the church’s responsibility to be instruments of God’s life-giving breath, the very embodiment of Christ’s resurrected presence living and moving in the world.

How do we do that?  Love the Lord your God with all that you are and all that you possess and your neighbor as yourself; pray without ceasing, shelter the homeless and feed the hungry; visit the imprisoned and return to no one evil for evil; bind the broken-hearted; release the captives; serve one another. 

Let me be more specific.  Maybe you could send a letter to the editor of the Daily Tar Heel, a letter addressed to the entire community: “you’re in our hearts and prayers”. Or, if you know one of those five thousand grieving students, offer your presence to him or her.

If that’s not possible, be aware that, within a few hundred feet of this church, there are people entombed by despair and anguish.  Perhaps you could go and sit with them for a while and listen; perhaps you could go and be Christ’s life-giving presence.   

If you do that, you will hear the rattling sound of bones reconnecting and you will see those dry bones begin to move and live.  You will witness resurrection in that person you are visiting; and, you will experience resurrection in your own life.    
           

 

 

 

 

         

 

 

         

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Dunn, North Carolina  28334-3241

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