Call to Worship I love you Lord
Prayer of Approach & Confession & The Lord’s Prayer (NBoP 831; BoP 605)
Opening Praise: songs 121 Close to thee
Responsive Reading – Psalm 130 [BoP 663]
Children’s story – Wally the Walrus the Watchman
Children’s Hymn: BoP 163 Tell me the stories of Jesus
Scripture Readings:
OT – Ezekiel 37:1-14
1The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
7So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”
Epistle – Romans 8:6-11
6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Hymn of Illumination: BoP 211 Speak, Lord in the stillness
Scripture Readings:
Gospel – John 11:1-45
1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.
7Then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
8“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?”
9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. 10It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.”
11After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
12His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
28And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
35Jesus wept.
36Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39“Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
40Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
Sermon: These dusty bones
Today I would like our attention to settle on the prophetic vision given to the prophet Ezekiel.
It is a dark scene, it is a depressing scene. That great valley of dry bones is every unconquerable task, every looming doubt, every uninspiring and uninspirable group. All these things wrapped into one vision and thrust by God upon the spirit of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is told to look upon that valley, and see it for what it was. Look into that valley and see your people, the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, scattered and broken like dry bones. It could not have been easy for Ezekiel to look at that scene. It is heart-breaking to see people in those kinds of circumstances; like people who have had bad news waiting for more bad news to come.
When I listen to the CBC hourly news I get into the sort of mindset, especially if there is a breaking story. Even when I hear good news in the report I feel as though they are softening me up for more bad news. The news reports make me look at life around me as though the world full of dark valleys filled with dry bones.
No one likes to be confronted by life in this way. It makes us feel powerless and small. And it should not be the way we try to view life, except to recognize the need that God is calling us to fill.
Ezekiel is given a command. God calls Ezekiel to see the situation and then God says, ‘Okay, now DO something about it!’
Those mystic visions that arise in reading scripture can seem fantastic, even a little frightening. Yet, the kind of mystic visions that are described the book of Ezekiel are out of most of our experiences, but that vision was only given to Ezekiel to help him see what was right in front of him, surrounding him. And he is shown in the vision that he has some ability in answering that need he has been shown, that he has seen.
Is there something that has come to mind your own life, in the lives of people who surround you? Is there some need for hope, or joy, or especially love in the people around you?
When you think of the valleys of dry bones, what are they for you? Are they the children’s faces who flash across the screen of the TV when campaigns are running for UNICEF or for World Vision. Is the valley of bones that you see a neighbour struggling with addictions, with debt, with a personal or a family crisis, or even with long-stand strife that kind that wears hope down to nothing. The world is not running short on valleys of dry bones.
What valley is God drawing you to see?
The Lord God commanded Ezekiel prophecy to those bones. Can you speak to the struggles around you? Can you accept, and do you recognize the calling God is putting on you to be His prophet to the hardships that surround your life?
God said to Ezekiel, “Prophecy to the bones.” And God said this because he had given Ezekiel all the resources he would need to fulfill the prophecy. When God put a mission in your life and a need to be filled before you, you are given all the resources you will need in order to fulfill that calling, that mission.
You might not feel like you have the necessary resources and abilities to fulfill a mission. You might look at a person or a situation and wonder why God has brought this to your attention. God might not be asking you to answer that need all by yourself either. Perhaps God has brought something to you attention because you know the group of people that can bring hope to the situation.
When Jesus was called from his journey to come to the gravesite of his friend Lazarus Jesus was confronted with the valley of dry bones as well. But the dry bones was not the body of his dead friend in the tomb. The dry bones were the hopeless faces, the joyless spirits of Martha and Mary. Jesus came to the mournful scene in Bethany, he called not only into the tomb, but into the lives of Martha and Mary and to all who were gathered their, not to be dry bones any longer but to believe, and to see that life had a wonderful knew meaning because of Jesus.
The new prophecy that Christ gives to all who seek for life in Christ’s resurrection came in the form of these words: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
And then Jesus asks, “Do you believe this?”
Is that what you are offering the world around, the world with its needs and it doubts and its worries? Is that what we as a church offer our community? Is that what we offer our region? our nation? this whole world?
Our world today can be so like that valley of dry bones shown to Ezekiel so long ago. Our lives can be focused on death, and this is a growing trend in our church; ensuring that grave markers are preserved while ministries fail and church building fall to disrepair.
But God is calling us to look through the valleys of death and to fear nothing, to hold no doubt. Jesus calls on us, as he called on Martha and Mary, to believe. To believe that he is the resurrection and the life. And I do believe.
That’s the real power in knowing Christ, in having Christ as your Saviour and Lord.
God breathes life in through the most hopeless of circumstances. Christ came not only to show us, and tell us, but unlike any prophet or priest that has ever lived he WAS the life. And Christ is the life forever
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
God’s Tithes and our gifts
Doxology (NBoP 830; BoP 603)
Offertory Prayer
Commissioning Hymn: BoP 233 Love divine, all loves excelling
Benediction
Dismissal: We celebrate the gifts we share