A, The Second Sunday of Advent - Matthew 3:10-12 "Three Fires:Destruction,Spirit,Refinement "

Matthew 3:10–12 (ESV) Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

It looks like a forest full of eucalyptus trees, but on closer inspection the trees are in uniform rows and not scattered like they are in a forest.  No! These eucalyptus trees are a plantation grown for the purpose of harvesting hardwood. Because the trees were all planted at the same time they have competed for sunlight and have grown tall and straight to make good timber for construction. 

One week the plantation stands tall, and then in a relatively short time it’s flattened.  The timber is harvested.  It goes on to serve its purposes for many years to come.  But the dying limbs and leaves are pushed into piles and burnt.

The plantation forest is a dismal sight compared to its former self. The only thing left is stumps.  Over time the seemingly dead stumps show signs of life and green shoots appear.  Within a year or so, these shoots form a mass of leafy bushes growing out of the stumps.  But these eucalyptus bushes that replace the tall trunks from the tree’s former life are stunted and twisted — not good for any use.

In time the owner of the field looks to a new type of harvest, the collection of electricity in a solar farm.  But first, the stumps are laboriously and painstakingly dug up one by one and burnt with the now dying leafy bushes.  Then the land can be cleared and cleaned for a solar farm to be constructed.

Matthew’s Gospel reports John the Baptist accusing the Pharisees and Sadducees of being a “brood of vipers”, to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance”, if they were “to flee from the wrath to come.” (Matthew 3:7-8)  John refers to them as the trees at which an axe is laid at the roots waiting to see what type of fruit is produced.

Last week we heard Jesus speak about signs of his coming. With the picture of the fig sending out shoots as a sign, we hear about bearing fruit in keeping with repentance.   Here we are reminded of the fig again, when Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit as he walks the way of the cross to bear the bad fruit of humanity.

On the day after Palm Sunday, Jesus, in hunger, seeing a fig tree, “found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again!’ And the fig tree withered at once.” (Matthew 21:19 ESV)

These decisive words from Jesus’ mouth destroy the fig tree. Similarly, John the Baptist’s words to the Pharisees and Sadducees are equally significant as he warns of their destruction without the fruit of repentance.

Three times John speaks of fire.  First, trees are cut down and thrown into the fire.  These trees are those that are not repentant.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees have arrived to see what John was doing at the Jordan River.  Perhaps some were intending to be baptised with others who were fruitful in confessing their sins.  Were they coming to flee the coming wrath through repentance, by confessing their sin?  Or were they coming to make a show before others who were confessing sin and being baptised with a baptism of repentance?  Either way John warns that the axe lies in wait!

Second, John compares his baptism of repentance with the coming of Jesus, saying, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11 ESV)

Here John connects Jesus’ baptism in (by, or with) a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.  This is John’s second mention of fire.  We know that tongues of fire appeared at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given.  This was good fire.  When Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan, he was baptised to fulfil all righteousness.  The fulfilling of all righteousness meant Jesus faced the fires of hell and death at the cross and gained victory over the fires of hell that were meant for us.  This is also good fire, when we allow the judgement to fall on Jesus at the cross through our confession of repentance.  Otherwise, as John rightly mentions these fires of judgement await all those who stand stubbornly unrepentant and will be chopped down and burnt bearing their unrepentant sin.  Then the fire becomes dire and deadly!

John mentions fire a third time to the Pharisees and Sadducees after Jesus winnows the wheat from the chaff that burns with an unquenchable fire. 

Unquenchable fire paints an ugly picture of those whose unquenchable passions resist the refining fires of the Holy Spirit.  Like one in the path of a raging unquenchable bushfire, so too is one who does not allow the Holy Spirit to backburn the human heart and the unquenchable sin that lies within.

Fire may be frightening, but I put it to you, a life “without fire” can also be frightening.  Since the first humans worked out how to make fire, we rely on it for everything.  Without fire, we all bathe in cold water, all food is cold and uncooked, and warmth in winter is just a memory.  Without fire, minerals stay in the ground and never become the metals relied upon in every part of modern life.

One might think fire and peace are mutually exclusive of each other.  The three fires John the Baptist proclaims speak differently. 

The first fire is the promise of destruction for all those who reject the two fires that follow.  Rightly, this fire fills hearts with fear.  As Luther says of Holy Baptism in his Small Catechism, “our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.”  In other words, in the face of this fire, we flee to the cross as knowledge about our sinful selves is daily brought to light.  Like the Prodigal Son in whom the Holy Spirit wins out over the human spirit, you and I are prodigals brought to a right mind and daily returned to the graciousness of God the Father, in his Son Jesus Christ!

We are returned to the second fire which John proclaims!  This is the baptism of Jesus in the Holy Spirit and fire.  In fact, this second fire is essential to overcome the first fire! 

In his baptism Jesus was baptised into the fires of humanity’s sin — your sin!  Having put aside his divinity as the Son of God, as the Son of Man in human flesh in his baptism he received the Holy Spirit on which he relied, to sinlessly be the sacrifice for our sin — your sin! 

Just as under the old covenant God lovingly consumed the sacrifices for the atonement of sin by fire, God joyfully receives the sacrifice of our sinful pride, as we confess our sins in repentance.  Humility is a small price to pay for the reception of Jesus Christ’s sinless death,  for our sin that deserves death and the eternal fires of hell.

In light of Jesus’ sacrifice, the need to make fiery sacrifices under the Law is finished.  All who know their works are not good enough for salvation would agree this fire is very good.  Just like fire is very good for cooking food, washing oneself, and for feeling warm!  The fire of the Holy Spirit that allows us to burn our sins in repentance through Christ is truly very good.  This fire makes us warm when we are cold!  It makes us warm in Christ, as he takes the coldness of death on himself on the cross.

Where the forest, the plantation of Israel was destroyed and thrown into the fire, Jesus has become Israel for the repentant, and we the church are his body of repentant confessing believers.   Jesus is Israel’s shoot from the stump of Jesse, and now stands as the tall, towering trunk into which the church is grafted. 

The Spirit of the Lord that rested upon him, rests upon the repentant church.  This is the Holy Spirit that gives wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord to the body of Christ – his holy church.  Despite our humanity looking like a fruitless fig tree, Jesus does not judge us by what he sees or hears, but by his righteousness sifting the wheat of Holy Spirit-germinated righteousness from the chaff of our humanity.

This brings us to the third fire after Jesus winnows or sifts us.  As we live in Christ, daily allowing the death of self in our baptism and being raised to life in the resurrection of Jesus, we are refined  by the fires of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The fruit of the Spirit is sifted from the chaff of our humanity.  We are being constantly pruned and used as pieces of Holy Spirit-treated timber for the building of Christ’s church on earth. We are Holy Spirit-refined wheat, cleansed to be germinators of God’s word wherever he’s put each of us in this world.

The Advent candle of peace is lit!  Let the peace of God burn in you as the Holy Spirit leads you in your repentance and confession for the forgiveness of sin.  You have been grafted into Christ to bear the fruit of Christ to others.   In the name of Jesus Christ, you are fruitful — let grace and peace be multiplied in you as the Holy Spirit makes him known to you. 

Let the Holy Spirit make you fruitful and faithful in Christ!  May his fire warm your heart, refine your spirit, and strengthen your witness. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, now and always. Amen. 

B, Post Pentecost 15 Proper 17 - James 1:26-27 "The Heart of the Matter"

The texts before us today seem to be a strange mixture from sexual love, to being doers of the word, and to ceremonial washing according to the tradition of the Jewish elders.

The first is the Song of Solomon, with its characters, a man and a woman, yearning to be with each other, physically and emotionally — sexually. 

The epistle of James, appears to dive into a justification debate where James seems to contradict Paul in saying, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24 ESV) James claims that just being a hearer of the word is insufficient for those who have been brought forth by the word of truth.

Finally, we hear Jesus engage with the Pharisees who question why Jesus’ disciples do not wash but rather eat with defiled hands. To which Jesus gives a list of evils that comes from within the heart and defiles a person.

One might ask, “What is the heart of the matter?” in these seemingly random texts here before us today.

However, these texts can engage us in what is arguably one of the most confused areas of the Christian life, which surround two of the simplest words, “be” and “do”!

What is it to be a Christian?  What is it to do Christian things, or activities?  Does your identity, who you are, come from what you do?  Or do your deeds happen because of your nature?

If you were to ask someone, “why don’t orange trees produce apples?”  I suspect after strange looks they would reply, “because orange trees produce oranges and apple trees produce apples!”

In the same way, we are called human beings!  Therefore, from our being human we do human things! 

Who upon waking up, had to tell themselves to wake up?  That’s the job of an alarm clock, or a full bladder!  Who here having woken, had to tell themselves to breathe?  No! You were breathing already before you thought about doing anything.  The doing of human things occurs  because we are human beings, being human!   

So why is it we get the being and doing of Christianity so confused and back-to-front? How do you hear the following?

“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  (James 1:26–27 ESV)

What do you make of the word “religious” here in the text?  Are you religious?  What is your religion?  Most of us would think of religion as what is our denomination; our religion is Lutheran!  Or failing that; our religion is Christian!  But is this what the text is asking of religion?

Let’s hear the statement again, but with a variation.  If anyone thinks he is Lutheran and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s Lutheranism is worthless.  Or, if anyone thinks he is Christian and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s Christianity is worthless.  Is Lutheranism or Christianity, the same as religion, as being religious?  Understanding, what is being religious, will remove the confusion of the doing and being of Christianity? 

Many people are religious, but most are not Christian.  Then again those who are faithful Christians are not necessarily religious at all.  Those on the fringes of the congregation are often heard saying, “Pastor, I’m not very religious!” And they’re surprised by my standard response, “that’s good I’m not religious either!”

So, what is the heart of the matter?  What is religion?  What is Christianity?  Is there a difference?  I believe there is!

This is where we can look at the relationship of the man and woman in the Song of Solomon.  Not just the physical/sexual relationship but the spirit of the relationship that blesses the proper workings of a relationship in marriage.

The yearning of the couple to be with each other is exactly that… to be with each other!  This is more than just sexually but to be a part of each other’s lives.  The blessings of doing things in the relationship are in addition to being in the relationship!  The spirit of a healthy marriage is to be with each other.

Or picture a poet, a writer and reciter of verse.  How dysfunctional would it be for a professional poet to never publish what he’s written.  Or, to never recite it in the hearing of others.  The heart of a poet, the spirit of a poet is to produce poetry for public pleasure.

What is the spirit of religion, and is it the same spirit that’s found in Christianity?  The reality is Christianity is religiously extreme.  Christianity and religion are similar but they’re spiritually different and it’s what brought Jesus into conflict with the Pharisees.  The same similarity but spiritual difference is where we find it difficult to differentiate between being religious and being a believer in Jesus Christ.

At its heart the spirit of religion is a yearning to transit death into an afterlife of sorts.  All religions have some set of works for this to occur, be it Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and the various new age religions in vogue today.  However, Christianity is different in that at its heart only one man was ever religious, in the true sense of the word, and that man is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Greater than the yearning of a man and woman is the spirit of Jesus’ love for humanity and for God.

Jesus came into conflict with the Pharisee party, not because they and he were different, but because they were the same.  Although the same, their spirit, their yearning, was for a very different purpose.  Remember that Jesus said at the sermon on the mount, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5:20 ESV) To put it in terms of religion, Jesus wants you to realise that unless your religion or deeds exceeds that of the Pharisees, you won’t be going to heaven!

That disqualifies every one of you, and me too!  The righteousness of the Pharisees was exceptional, but it was not good enough!  Similarly, if you seek to be doers of the word like a Pharisee, that too, is not good enough either, despite what James seems to tell us!  However, Jesus’ righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees!  What he did as the Word incarnate in flesh was, a deed, “a doing of the word” second to none.

The heart of the matter is the spirit of desire that dwelt in Jesus is different to all others who seek to be doers of the word, or doers of anything for that matter!  Jesus tells us the heart of every human produces evil things and these defile every person.  The heart of the matter is the spirit of a person is not a doer of what pleases God. 

In this way Jesus is the only one whose religion exceeds that of the Pharisees.  He not only exceeded their righteousness, but it was done in the spirit God intended it to be done.  Unfortunately, all pharisaic righteousness done in Jesus’ day, right through to today, is a righteousness or religious activity that glorifies the self, and says, “Look how good I am because of what I’ve done!”

The spirit of Jesus’ religiosity or righteousness says, “Look at what I’ve done for you, because I love our Father, and seek to do his will!”  Yours and my religion or deeds are worthless, whereas Jesus’ religion or deeds are worthy!”  His deeds gift us and grace us with our Christian being!

But what of James’ command to be doers of the word and not only hearers?  This is where we are to know the heart of the matter.  To not only be hearers of God’s word but to believe the word is  implanted within.  The Holy Spirit works in you, so you allow it to work.  The Holy Spirit wills you to believe in the one the Father has sent, namely Jesus Christ, implanted within.

The heart of the matter is not your human heart, that’s the heart of all your trouble.  For us to be doers of the word, requires us to believe, allow our human being to be daily drowned in repentance, so a heart of faith in Jesus might be lived in us by the Holy Spirit. 

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17a ESV)  What are these gifts?  Forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, in Jesus Christ.

In the weeks to come, James continues to differentiate, in following chapters, between the dead deeds of unspiritual religiosity and the deeds of those who trust in the implanted word, which allows us to endure in the gifts of God that lead to eternal life!

Humans do sinful human things because we’re being human. But you do Christian things because the Holy Spirit is making you holy, having heard and received the implanted word, Jesus Christ the word made flesh.

The heart of the matter is: you not only do the works of faith; that is, believing in Jesus Christ (John 6:29).  But trusting in Jesus, you do even greater works than the works he did while on earth (John 14:12). Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 10 Proper 12 - John 6:4-14 "A Poor Person’s Provision"

John 6:4–14 (ESV)  Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.  Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”  He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.  Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”  One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”  Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.  Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.  And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”  So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.  When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

When parents pack lunches for their children, there’s an expectation that they actually eat their lunch.

How many times the kids have come home from school for a parent to find their lunch still in their lunchbox!  Or worse, a deceased pulped sandwich cocooned in gladwrap pulled from the pants pocket in the laundry!

Sometime the loot of lunchboxes is traded in the school yard.  I’ll give you this, if I can have that!  Much to the lament of families who lovingly pack lunch only to have the kids swap it for something they desire in the other kid’s lunchbox.  Familiarity breeds contempt and often the grass seems greener over the fence, in this case the loot looks like it’ll taste better from the other person’s lunchbox.  A reoccurring packet of potato chips swapped with a familiar piece of cake, a win for both parties who are sick of having the same lunch every day.  A vegemite sandwich traded for a cold piece of pizza, who’d a thought this was a fair trade!  But everyone walks back into the classroom with contented tummies!

A small boy with five barley loaves and two fish.  Who wants to trade?  No one!  Nobody has anything to trade!  We all remember the kids who come to school with nothing; with nothing to offer, but in need of a feed! 

But barley loaves were not much of an offering, and those who needed a feed, were five thousand.  This is a physical impossibility.  But this is a test!  Who was the provider for the people who had gathered?

Barley bread is the bread of a poor person, like the kid whose daily bread was a sandwich with no butter but only tomato sauce!  But at least it was something!  There were kids who came with nothing and coveted even a tomato sauce sanger.  But all our lunches made us seem like we were poor when some kids bought their lunch every day.  Like paupers, we all coveted their lunch when they returned from the tuckshop with pies, hotdogs, sausage rolls, custard and apple slices, chocolate milk and ice-creams!

Jesus takes the barley loaves and the two fish and divides them amongst the five thousand.  We have to remember here that Jesus has put aside his divinity!  So, as you or I would take the food and give thanks for it, he takes the bread and fish and prays, trusting not in his own powers, but rather those of the Holy Spirit, and God the Father in heaven.  Then he distributes it to five thousand men!  We can expect there to be more there than just men, so in all reality more than five  thousand were present. 

Feeding five thousand plus with five loaves and two fish, that seems impossible!  How could this man Jesus do this?  Those who saw the sign saw Jesus akin to the prophets who had long since appeared in a bygone era when God worked wonders through them!   

The physical sign Jesus performed making something from next to nothing, a poor boy’s provision, is miraculous to say the least.  It’s unexplainable like the jar of oil and flour that Elijah declared to the widow of Zarephath would not become empty.

There’s a temptation not to believe it, because the desire to know is just unknown.  However, what is happening here in God’s word is his desire to turn us from the sign God the Father performed through Jesus to Jesus himself!

Those who witnessed the event saw Jesus as a powerful prophet, they did not see him as the Son of God, and why should they?  They didn’t see the sign as coming from Jesus’ faithfulness in the weakness of his humanity but from his extraordinary power. 

Therefore, Jesus withdrew from them because he knew they would seek to force him to be their king. Jesus was to be enthroned as king, but not by their will or way!  He would become king in his way, under the will of God the Father, through the way of the cross!

Those of the five thousand wanted to make him king because they saw the power of the impossible sign perform, rather than the weakness in which Jesus performed the powerful sign.  It was not by his power that he broke the bread, but by his faithful submission to the power of God the Father to work through the weakness and weariness of his humanity. 

It was Jesus’ faithfulness, in his weakness, allowing God to work the miracle on a poor boy’s meagre lunch of barley bread and fish.

The distribution was far from insufficient.  Five loaves and two fish divided by five thousand is a miniscule amount.  Yet everyone ate their fill, as much as they wanted!  The size of the crowd, so many people, so little food!  A poor person’s provision is miraculously populated to provide for the five thousand plus people who came with nothing!  And nothing was left to waste!  Twelve baskets of leftover bread pieces are collected!  The poor boy’s barley bread was just as precious after the miracle as it was before.  Yet the math doesn’t add up, it doesn’t make sense.

Imagine what the boy’s mother said to him when he arrived home carrying more than what he was sent!  It sounds like a whopper of a tale to tell his mother, that he shared his lunch with five thousand people and these are the leftovers.  It does sound like the fantasies of a poor boy’s imagination!

But it wasn’t a fantasy!  It was the time of the Passover feast.  In the other Gospel records Jesus has sought to find a desolate place to rest with his disciples.  They had returned after being sent out, commanded to preach the gospel, heal the sick and cast out demons.  Yet, Jesus doesn’t pass over the people’s neediness! 

Nothingness or poverty in the face of the Passover stands out as the overwhelming theme here at the feeding of the five thousand.  The crowd have nothing to eat, the disciples have nothing to eat, having gone out to do the work of God with nothing but the bare essentials.  The boy has nothing but five loaves of barley bread, unleavened flat bread most likely made without any raising agent, and two fish.  And Jesus who has nothing to give, nothing except his faithfulness to God and the crowd!

Later on, Jesus says to his disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  (John 6:63 ESV)

It was Jesus’ nothingness in which the power of the Holy Spirit worked in him.  Jesus had put aside his divine miraculous ability as the Son of God, making the feeding of the five thousand even more incredible!  Perhaps, even more unbelievable! 

In his weakness as a human, in his submission as the Son of Man, he takes from our Father, his Father, and gives to us.  Jesus’ word is God’s word, and it faithfully gives spirit and life to all who are poor!

Our flesh is no help!  But the weakness of Jesus’ flesh, crucified and raised from the dead, is powerful.  Like children trading lunch in the playground, he takes our poverty and gives us the Holy Spirit-filled richness of his Father’s food of life!  Jesus’ word is spirit and life!  Why wouldn’t you want to trade the poverty of your spirit and life for that!  Amen.

Let us pray.  Heavenly Father thank you that Jesus has taken what we desire and deserve and gives us what he desires and deserves.  Send you Holy Spirit every day so we do not become dissatisfied with Jesus’ lunch of eternal life and desire the desserts of death.  Help us to clearly see our poverty and need, so we freely feed on the life-giving power of the resurrected Son of God’s word, body, and blood.  Amen. 

A, Lent 5 - Ezekiel 37:1-14 "A Bone to Pick"

Dry bones in a dead paddock paints a picture of desolation!  What was once covered in life with flesh and sinews is now deserted of life lying in the dust.  Dry bones tell us death has put an end to life.

There’s not much one can do to make bones live.  But bones have been used by people since the earliest of times to make tools, such as knives, hooks, and spears.  Still bone a lifeless object can be used to take life away when it’s used as a weapon.  But then again bone has been used as needles, buttons, and in corsets.  Yet still it’s used as a result of the lifeless cravings people had in the Garden of Eden.

Ezekiel, under the hand of God, had a vision of a valley of bones.  These bones were dry as dry.  They were completely void of water, of life.  But these bones were not the bones of animals.  No!  They were human bones!

It might be one thing seeing bones of animals lying out in the open, but human bones in mass numbers, surely would run a chill up anyone’s spine.  The sight of human skulls and empty bodily frames would cut to the bone of any living person.  We’re thankful we are spared having to witness such a gut-wrenching sight.  But, in the past some have uncovered mass graves from human atrocities such as those of World War Two and more recently in places like Bosnia.

But even so these bones were discovered in graves; however, the bones Ezekiel saw were in a valley, out in the open.  Only the bodies of those most contemptible would be left out to rot for all to see.  There would be no honourable burial for those who defiled themselves while alive.  One only has to think of Jezebel, the evil wife of King Ahab, who was thrown into the street, trampled by horses, and eaten by dogs.  Only the despicable would be left this way. Human bones scattered like excrement exposed for others to stand on.

And so, God shows Ezekiel bones exposed like these.  Thousands upon thousands of human fragments absent of life, bones as dry as… a bone!  Left desolate, deserted, defiled, and dead!  And God asks Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” To which he replies, “O Lord God, you know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)

God addresses Ezekiel as “the Son of man”.  Immediately this title might resonate within as the title Jesus used of himself over and over again on his march to the cross.  To be a “son of man” is being a son of Adam, a human, a created being from the earth who’s received the breath of life from God. 

Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man.  The eternal and omnipresent Son of God is born the Son of Mary, the Son of Man, in the line of Adam!  Created out of Adam as a servant to those of Adam!  The Son of humanity is also the servant of humanity!

  Ezekiel is called to serve God in this vision by serving these bones.  The question is asked if the bones can live.  We might say in despair, “God only knows!”  But Ezekiel replies, “O Lord God, you know.”

And he did know.  When we look at the context of this vision from chapter 37 in between chapters 36 and the latter half of chapter 37 we see God is restoring his creation and his people from their desolation to the chosen land once given to them.  God was promising to turn the desert back into a fertile place, a land of milk and honey, a place of promise, appearing like the Garden of Eden, with a shepherd serving them as King David once did.

Why was God doing this?  For the sake of his holy name.  He says, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.  You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”  (Ezekiel 36:22,25–28 ESV)

God had a bone to pick with Israel, and like a bone picked clean by a dog, God had reduced his wayward people through exile and hardship leaving them as dry as a bone chewed clean by dogs.  Not only did he cut to the bone, he left the bone bare and now sends his servant Ezekiel, a Son of man, to be his mouthpiece of life, breathing God’s word back into Israel’s parched desolation.

Even greater than Ezekiel, God the Father sent his Son Jesus Christ as the Son of Man as his servant to restore holiness to all of humanity. And God still seeks to cleanse through Christ, he seeks to sprinkle his grace and mercy on all, cleansing from the idols that seem to pop up in our lives, to daily wash those who allow the Holy Spirit to drown the old sinful “bones” through repentance and resurrect us in forgiveness and faith.

Yes!  God has a bone to pick with you and me, but he has picked us clean in Christ.   But now we’re called to make no bones about it.  Like heart-warming soup on a cold winter’s day, we’re called to swallow the truth of his word with confidence and ease.  Rather than make bones about it, or to put bones in the soup, let God’s way be your way to his glory.

Make no bones about it – Jesus sees you in the hardships of your human existence.  And not only that – like Lazarus you are his friend, and he weeps over what your sin does to you.  But God has done something about it.  He left Jesus languish on the cross, to pay the price of your sin.  We hear Jesus’ heartbreaking cry of our human condition, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.”  (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:26) 

These words recorded first in Psalm 22 also testify to Jesus’ wretched bones on the cross, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast…  I can count all my bones — they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” (Psalm 22:14,17–18 ESV)

Your bones, the bones of all believers, the bones of Israel are now bound together by the sinews and flesh of Christ.  Our bodies are not left desolate in the desert for dogs to digest.  No!  Our graves are made holy by God and the Son of Man is returning to roll the stone away from our graves and our lives of sin.  Jesus promises to raise you to life, not in the earthly kingdom of Israel, but in fellowship with him together with the Father and the Holy Spirit in his Holy Kingdom of Heaven.

For… “Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel.  And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:12–14 ESV) Amen.