April 2, 2017 – Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45
Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45
Can these Bones Live?
Fifth Sunday in Lent – April 2, 2017
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
In this story of the raising of Lazarus, Jesus arrives late.
In a miracle story in which the main miracle is maybe hard to believe,
this is a detail in the story that is not overly hard to believe: Jesus arrives late.
Mary and Martha are left wondering for at least two days: where the hell is Jesus?
Why has he waited to come?
We don’t really receive a satisfactory answer to that question.
Sure, Jesus says, it’s to show the glory of God.
But what does that mean?
He let his friend die so that he could show of the power of God at work in him?
That just doesn’t sound right.
Or is the glory to be found elsewhere?
Whatever the case, the truest thing in the story is the absence of Jesus in a difficult time.
Sure: Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
And many of us – maybe most of us – have experienced that at some point in our lives:
grace, forgiveness, and love giving us hope and a new or renewed lease on life.
But just as many of us – if not all – have also experienced what we perceive to be Jesus’s
absence in situations of despair and death.
And we are left wondering: where is God now?
Because I could sure use some life in the midst of all this death and despair.
The recent film Manchester by the Sea, like the Gospel story,
deals with death, lots of it.
And, like the Gospel story, it deals with the impact of death on those touched by it.
Lee Chandler lives alone in Boston.
He had grown up in the nearby seaside town of Manchester by the Sea.
He had a wife and three children.
But his children were killed in a house fire as a result of his not putting a fire screen in front of
the fireplace before he went out one night.
As a result, his marriage ended, he moved away, filled with guilt, the object of town suspicion,
full of despair and hopelessness, unable to form significant connections with people,
except for the occasional drunken bar fight, which was the next closest thing.
His connection to the town and his family is his brother Joe and Joe’s son Patrick,
whom Lee continues to visit and be close to after he moves away.
When Patrick is 16, his father Joe dies –
and unexpectedly names Lee the boy’s guardian in the will.
Lee is unwilling and seemingly unable to take on this responsibility.
He has no desire to return to Manchester, and the boy is unwilling to move to Boston and
leave his hockey team, his band, his friends – and the two girlfriends he juggles.
And we wonder: can the uncommunicative Lee find healing?
Can he break free from the guilt and anger that wall him in –
enough to form relationships again and care for his nephew?
In the Hollywood ending we would all prefer, he does.
In the Biblical ending we would all prefer, he does.
But by the end of the film, he can’t.
“I can’t beat this thing,” he says near the end. “I just can’t.”
Ultimately all will be well – we believe this.
All things are in God’s hands and ultimately God will find a way to restore and
redeem all things.
But in the time between Jesus’s resurrection and the restoration of all things there is
a good deal of waiting to be had.
There is a good deal of death and grief to experience.
Just ask Ezekiel.
This morning he has a vision – a vision of a valley of dead, dry bones.
It is the scene of a battlefield.
And it is likely reminiscent of the recent destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
Survivors of the destruction were exiled to Babylon to live a life in the shadow of
defeat and despair and death.
And in the midst of this exile, Ezekiel has his vision of the valley of dry, dead bones.
God asks him, “Can these bones live?”
And Ezekiel, who has surely seen the seeming finality of death and destruction,
answers wearily, “Only you know, God.”
Then he’s granted a vision of the bones putting on flesh once again and filled with life.
But unlike other similar scenes from the prophets and psalms where the dead live again,
there is no rejoicing and dancing here.
The bones are standing on their feet, and at least they are breathing again, but no more.
They are still waiting – waiting for a return to their land and the celebrating and dancing.
And they would have to wait some time before they were finally returned to their own land
as God promised – another 80 years.
But still, the story seems to say, God is very near even in the waiting – as near as breath.
In the Gospel story, before Lazarus is raised, Jesus finally comes,
But still there is waiting before life returns.
And in that waiting time, the most healing thing Jesus can do is grieve with Martha and Mary.
And he does.
This is maybe the most moved Jesus gets in the Gospels – and that is to say, very very moved.
In Greek what he is experiencing is splagchnizomai, intense, gut-wrenching grief,
that grief you feel way down in your inside turning your stomach upside down.
And he weeps deeply with Mary and Martha –
and I wonder if that in itself is not healing for them.
We all know the healing from grief that begins – but doesn’t end – in tears shed with and by
those who love us, and who enter into our grief with us.
In film, Lee has those who grieve with him the death that surrounds him.
The most striking scene in the film occurs on a street, when he accidentally runs into
his ex-wife – who has in her own way been able to move on from
the deaths of their children.
She has a new partner and has just given birth to a child that she’s pushing in a stroller.
She tells him she is sorry about his brother’s Joe death.
And she says at the beginning of the conversation that she wants to talk for a bit.
She says she doesn’t really have anything big to say.
“That’s okay,” he says.
But she does.
She begins to cry and express her sorrow for all the terrible things she said to Lee
in the aftermath of the deaths of their children.
He doesn’t want to hear this – his walls are up but she goes on,
desperately trying to apologize, desperately trying to get him to talk, to remove the wall.
When he continues to refuse she says in exasperation, “You can’t just die!”
“I gotta go,” he says – and she replies, “I’m sorry.”
The film does not have the Hollywood ending.
Lee does not, by the time film ends, find the person who will bring him healing.
Even though his ex-wife is standing there at the entrance to his tomb calling him to come out,
he can’t.
As he says, “I just can’t beat this thing.”
And yet, and yet, the film is not all heaviness.
It is actually quite funny in places.
The cracks in all the characters and in the situation allow the light to shine through.
Lee and his nephew Patrick do share a bond that has been nurtured since Patrick was little.
When Patrick encourages Lee to come into his girlfriend’s house and get to know the
girlfriend’s mother, he says, “This could be good for both of us!”
Patrick, too, is standing at the tomb entrance, calling for Lee to come out.
But he can’t.
He is too wrapped up and confined and constricted by the bandages of grief.
And yet, a little light shines through.
After his conversation with Randi his ex-wife, we see him smile for the first time.
And then, we see him embrace his nephew in a real, close, loving embrace.
Maybe he’s not dancing. Maybe he’s not rejoicing.
But, like the dead in Ezekiel’s vision, he’s standing again. And he’s breathing.
And maybe that is true to life.
Grief, we all know, is a long process.
We grieve for many things: sometimes we grieve literal deaths, and that can be devastating.
But other times we grieve losses of other things, just as devastating.
Relationships that have come to an end.
Job loss. Loss of control through addiction or aging.
The changes people in our lives go through.
Loss of our physical and mental abilities.
The changes that illness bring on.
And when we’re in the middle of it all and God seems far away, we wonder:
where the hell is Jesus? And will this ever come to an end?
The film is helpful in pointing out that healing from grief is a long process.
It’s also helpful in reminding us that we need to celebrate and be thankful for the small
steps taken in healing, for each bandage that is removed:
a genuine smile, the ability to embrace again.
Most of all, it reminds us that Jesus is somehow strangely present, weeping with us
through those close to us who love us and who shed tears with us.
That Jesus, though seemingly absent, comes and calls out to us at the entrance to our tombs,
calling to us to come out, reminding us we can’t just die.
That Jesus has purposefully commissioned others to remove our bandages and
help unbind us.
Maybe the miracle of new life and new hope is always God’s,
but just as surely God enlists the help of those who love us to call us out of our tombs,
to bring healing, and to unbind us from that which shackles us.
Yes, maybe Jesus comes late – but not too late.
Yes: healing takes a long time, but there are small markers on the way,
bandages that get removed one at a time, removals that promise a larger unbinding and
a final setting free.
Let us give thanks for those who grieve with us, for those who call to us to come out.
In them, let us see Jesus.
And let us too, hear the voice of Jesus in commissioning us to be those who, in turn,
call to those who are in grief and despair, weep with them, and help remove what is
binding them and constricting them,
till one day – hopefully not too far distant –
we can all dance and rejoice together.
In the meantime, we wait. We wait with Lee, and we wait together. Trusting.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
