March 22, 2026
READINGS & MESSAGE
EZEKIEL 37:1-14
So welcome to our first reading on this Sunday…it’s one that has garnered many paintings and illustrations and even songs…it’s about those dry bones in the desert…bones that have been bleached in the desert sun and would never come alive again…and this passage is truly metaphorical in that the writer is explaining to the folks from Israel that as God puts the bones together with sinew and skin and breath and makes them come alive so will Israel come alive and come back to their own soil and live once again in their promised land…a passage which offers hope if one puts trust in God…
PSALM 130
You know in my experience and probably also in yours, the hospital’s waiting room which could be outside of the surgery room…may be one of the loneliest places on earth…even when it’s full of people. You know you’ve heard this, “Wait here. The doctor will call you when it’s over.” And believe it or not, there’s a subtle lesson in this lonely place – make time to wait with those who wait…and folks, us as God’s people, are not merely waiting, we are also watching…we watch and hope…and what difference does this make?...it’s the difference between resignation… and…resurrection!...so, Psalm 130 and we begin with the singing of the Refrain…
JOHN 11:1-45
The Gospel passage is the raising of Lazarus and in reading through this something came to me…and it has to do with parallels…there are so many parallels in scripture and we need to pay attention to them…there’s one line in this passage where Jesus asks those who are present, “Where have you laid him?”…and on another day, and we’ll experience this in a few weeks, there’s Mary weeping at another tomb and asking, “Tell me where have you laid him?”…and on that day, the disciples will see a sign even greater than the raising of Lazarus…here, at the tomb of Lazarus, death is denied for a time…there, at the tomb of Jesus, death is overcome for good…
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!
I find it rather interesting that the liturgies for this Sunday, especially the Old Testament passage and the Gospel, both speak of incidents which may seem to many to be totally impossible…to scan the horizon in the desert and see for countless miles and miles….bones…bones which have been bleached and have been broken and are lying in piles and piles and suddenly the clacking begins…the clacking of bones coming together and muscle and tissue appearing and soon the whole desert is alive with new birth…with dancing forms…with breathing humanity….mission impossible!...
Jesus calls to a dead man…a dead Lazarus…one who has been dead for 4 days…calls him to come out and walk…mission impossible!....
Or are they?
The biblical text is filled with metaphor…filled with parables and stories and incidents which to most of us would seem impossible to happen…impossible to comprehend…unless we look at these stories with a certain lens – that lens of looking deeply under the surface of what is read and what the story really means…to be a literalist in scripture reading can sometimes overshadow what the writers truly mean to convey….the Bible itself needs to read each and everyone of us and we need to get away from the concept of reading it…it is a living, breathing, life-changing, documentation of our faith – of our beliefs…
A documentation of dry bones coming to life….of death coming to new life….one may even look at the Lazarus story as a precursor or a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection…read into these whatever you need to, to push your faith further to belief in the impossible…to push the boundaries of our often closed/boxed thinking…
I don’t think that I will ever tire of Ezekiel 37 (or ez-e-kiel) as Hebrew theologians call this book ….more than any other Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel is a writer…and for those of us who read fiction and historical fiction and the such, we know that we often get lost in the story and it almost becomes real…this is because writers work on the premise that in each of us, there is the gift of dreaming and the gift of understanding and that each of us have different levels of reality…
Think of Ezekiel for a moment…this was written to a people exiled from their home, lost, wandering, scattered, back in the wilderness. I can only dimly imagine what it meant to them to be moving away from the Promised Land…to be uprooted from Canada and to be deported to North Korea (for instance) where freedom of speech would have you executed…
I think of the dispossessed of this century, fleeing into exile amid bombs and bullets, all too frequently leaving behind everything which defines them…leaving their sacred place, their extended family, the graves of their ancestors or the unburied bodies of their loved ones slain in genocide…I hear whispers, anguished howls, hopeless sobs in a hundred languages every time I hear the words, “Can these bones live?”…
Yes they can…for we are people of hope….we are people of faith…and ultimately, we are people who have deep convictions of peace….
We believe that the impossible can happen!....nothing to us is mission impossible…
I often lament over the perceived idea that when a family member passes away, call the minister, call the church, for death has just happened and we need to do something about it…we become a place of death…how wrong!...we are a place of rebirth – of newness – church has become for many, a place of slumber, a place where death is expected. Sad – it ought to be place of resurrection, awakening…for this is who we are…people of resurrection…people of living bones…people of empty tombs…
Close your eyes for a moment….allow yourselves to contemplate your very own, personal mortality….
Perhaps the images of the valley of dry bones, the stillness and desolation resonate for you…perhaps the tears, the graveclothes, and the tomb in the text from John speak more directly to what you are feeling….
Is there some regret that arises out of your heart and mind, something you wish you had done?....
A person you wish you could have embraced?...
A letter you wanted to write?....
The lessons from Ezekiel and John are, among other things, about second chances…as you move through this week, notice the colours in the world…pause and consider a “second chance” offered right then and there to do, think, feel, say, write, pray, something that you have been putting off…
Do the impossible, for through God, everything is possible….
Amen.