Photo from the United Church of God Australia
Karen Hollis | May 19, 2024
Pentecost
Ezekiel 37:1-14 NRSV
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. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 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.”
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. 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. 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.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
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.’ 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. And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 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.”
Acts 2:1-4 NIV
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
Springtime is a dynamic season in this part of the world. As the days get longer and the land thaws, storms come in off the water and the wind blows. Wind is just what happens when air moves from a high-pressure area to one with lower pressure. But through our senses, there is so much more. In the last few days, the wind has taken our breath away, cut through our clothing, blown our hair in every which way, as we watch as birds hang in the air, and see animals on alert. Some days it feels like the winds are coming from all directions, blowing through branches, churning up the sea, heightening our senses. Perhaps we even hear a still small voice within us wondering: what is God up to?
In the Hebrew mind, there is no distinction between the rush of a violent wind, the breath of God, the inbreaking of the Holy Spirit, and taking a deep breath into our lungs. It’s all the same. In this season of new life, of longer and warmer days, of greening and strengthening and new energy, the Spirit of God is active, not only within us, but among us.
Then there are times where everything is still. Like the disicples waiting in the in-between time. Gathered on the day of the Pentecost festival, waiting for something . . . for what, they aren’t quite sure. Waiting in the spaciousness for God to arrive in a new way. There is a stillness in the desert like no other. It can be peaceful or barren, empty or pregnant. Perhaps Ezekiel was watching the stillness when he received the vision of a valley full of bones. It was around 600 BCE – he had been removed from Jerusalem and taken to Babylon after the city fell to the army of King Nebuchadnezzar . . . there, in a foreign land, he was called to the prophetic.
Ezekiel’s vision opens with the stillness and dryness of death: dust dry, bone dry. The bones of his people lay on the valley floor. The war is over and all has been lost. Loss of land, loss of identity, loss of family and community. It’s all gone. The lives that would have been are gone. There are no more individuals or faces or names, no ceremonial burials or marked graves, rather it’s a whole valley full of bones. It is a collective and decisive loss that is shared among those who survive . . . it is as real today as it was back then.
I heard a heartbreaking news story about some Palestinian families who, before evacuating an area, hastily buried their loved ones in easily recognizable places so that, when it was reasonably safe to do so, they could come back and give them a proper burial. The families came back to find the bodies had been removed and placed into mass graves, where they could no longer be identified. Things have come apart to the point that people can’t even find their dead. Towns are reduced to dust.
Violence in the region goes back so far, back farther even than Babylon, perhaps even older than history. It’s a dance of people who deep down, want a home, want to belong, and want to be known and loved by God. The suffering of each side is so endemic, it’s bone deep, it’s a scripted dance, passed down from one generation to the next. When I think about my own wounded places that get activated, and how wrapped up in it all I can become, I wonder what hope there is for peoples who have been fighting for so long.
Theologian and writer Parker Palmer said, “Violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering.”1
There must be another way. Something else. Anything else. As fellow humans and siblings in the family of our ancestor Abraham, we wonder and pray and ache: can these bones live?
Whatever new life is possible from this point forward will take an act of God . . . but God doesn’t act alone. God instructs Ezekiel: prophesy to the bones. Tell them: “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 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.”2 When Ezekiel prophesies in this way, he hears a great noise rise up out of the stillness . . . it sounds different . . . it’s not the sound of things coming apart, rather things coming back together. Imagine the sound of thousands of bones finding one another, finding their place, finding their home, not only bones, but soul pieces, fragments of identity, lost dreams. In a process of shalom, they become whole again. Sinews and flesh and skin come upon them.
Then God instructs Ezekiel: “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.” Thus says the God of Abraham, God of us all. The breath comes into them and they stand together, a great multitude.
Thus says the God of Abraham, God of us all: I will open your graves and bring you back to your own land. The land of which God speaks has many names: Canaan, Palestine, Israel, Holy Land. It is a land of many peoples, many families, many identities. With hearts swollen with ache and hope at the beauty of these words, we wonder how . . . surely God doesn’t mean to bring them home, only to make new graves. Our God has bigger dreams than that. Our God breathes in and among us bringing death into life, death into life . . . over and over again until the whole world is whole . . . inviting creation into partnership . . . healing us . . . inspiring us . . . calling us . . . helping us to align our hearts and lives and actions with God’s love . . . we listen and wonder, what are we to do? What is one thing I can do?
We breathe in together . . . and the Holy Spirit rushes in to meet us, resting with each of us. O God, originator of breath, God of the four winds, God of love, God of healing and wholeness, O Holy Spirit, come among the people of the earth, break into every place of violence . . . come afresh on us, for we are ready for something new. Amen.
1 Parker Palmer. On the Brink of Everything. p. 160.
2 Ezekiel 37