A Fourth Church Sermon by Joyce Shin

March 9, 2008 | 6:30 p.m. Vespers

Mortal, Can These Bones Live?

Joyce Shin
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 130
Ezekiel 37:1–14
John 11:28–44

The earth inhales God, why
Should we not do
The same?

Thomas Aquinas
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Because my husband is a physician, we have many anatomy books in our home. When he was in medical school and I was in divinity school, he had to take care that I would not come upon his anatomy books just lying open. He knew that I found the photographs in these books to be disturbing and unsettling.

Today’s passage from Ezekiel is similarly graphic and grotesque. The image of a valley littered with broken skeletons being restored by overlaying sinews, then flesh, and then skin is something I can engage only because at the end of this graphic description the bodies are made whole and then given life by the breath of God. Rather than repelling me, Ezekiel’s account of his vision has the opposite effect. It draws me in. It makes me want to know more about the mystery of life. What is the source of life? What renews life?

God asks such a question to Ezekiel: “Mortal, can these bones live?” This is a question about the impossible. And Ezekiel answers, “O Lord God, you know.” Ezekiel neither rules out nor affirms the possibility of resuscitation. Only God has that kind of knowledge. Though Ezekiel does not know the mysteries of life and death, he does know that God’s power extends over both the living and the dead.

What a difference such knowledge makes. It empowers Ezekiel to follow God into a field of broken skeletons, the bones of the house of Israel destroyed, and to address the lifelessness and hopelessness that as a survivor of the destruction he knew intimately. God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones: “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.” That these words come from God, the source of all life, gives Ezekiel reason to hope for the impossible.

In a speech given in 1992, three years after the dissolution of the Iron Curtain, Václav Havel, then president of Czechoslovakia, addressed the question “Who should be the guardian and bearer of spiritual qualities in the realm of practical politics?” Havel was a playwright and a political dissident who had been imprisoned by the communist regime that ruled his country for more than forty years. In a startlingly rapid and unexpected change in world geopolitics, he was catapulted from the position of dissident writer to president. He believed that the spirit of hope, compassion, and idealism driving intellectuals, poets, and artists should also be infused into politics. In his speech he said,

It is, of course, improper for a politician to give in to depression and despair. It is even less proper to show this in public. On the other hand, I believe it would be a good thing if politicians were more emotionally committed, not only to their own political fate but also to the fate of the world. Rather than merely seeking to satisfy the many special interests and pressures they must accommodate if they wish to stay in power, they should listen more to the voice of their unique, individual conscience—the way poets do” (The Art of the Impossible, p. 100).

In fact, Havel urged artists to stop shunning politics and instead to help transform politics from being an art of the possible, by which he meant an art of speculation, calculation, and pragmatic maneuvering, into the art of the impossible (p. 8).

Some Christians would say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead epitomizes an instance in which the impossible becomes possible. Reversing nature’s life-death sequence stuns us, as it did the early Christians. The idea of a bodily resurrection was perhaps more accepted by early Christians, however, than by modern-day skeptics. While in the sixth century BCE, the time when Ezekiel was living, the concept of a bodily resurrection was neither ruled out nor affirmed with certainty, by the beginning of the common era it had already become well established in Judaism. And when we come to the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, the last and greatest miracle story in the Gospel of John, no one seems to question God’s power to raise someone from the dead. Instead, for those who don’t know Jesus to be the Son of God. the question is does Jesus have the power to raise the dead, and for others who, like Mary and Martha, already believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the question seems to be, if Jesus can raise someone from the dead, then why does he allow them to suffer and die in the first place? In other words, what is the value in being human?

Lazarus has been dead for four days. His body has begun to decompose. His sisters Mary and Martha have been waiting for Jesus to arrive. If you were to read the story from the beginning of chapter eleven, you would know that the sisters really wanted Jesus to arrive before Lazarus died, while he was still ill, when Jesus could prevent their brother from dying. When Jesus finally arrives, Mary says to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Timing here is so critical. Whenever death is concerned, in one way or another, timing becomes everything. Emergency medical professionals, doctors, firefighters—anyone in the business of saving lives—knows this. We know it too. Death is a boundary at which there is no turning back the clock, no reversal.

Moved by Mary’s grief and tears, Jesus too weeps. The people who have been consoling Mary see Jesus’ genuine love of Lazarus and they raise the question: couldn’t Jesus have spared Lazarus from dying?

As much as Lazarus’ family and friends wanted Lazarus to be spared, he is not. The author of this gospel seems to be making a point—that God does not spare those he loves from life’s difficulties, even from the difficulties that lead to death.

The passage from Ezekiel reminds us of this reality. The backdrop to Ezekiel’s vision is Jerusalem’s destruction. The bones filling the field belong to the house of Israel, God’s beloved and chosen people. Neither the Old nor the New Testament presents a God who saves those whom he loves by sparing them hardship and death. God did not spare Jerusalem from destruction. Jesus did not keep Lazarus from dying. Nor did he prevent the sisters from grieving. Even for himself, Jesus never asked God to save him from suffering death on a cross, and God did not spare him from it.

So if God can resurrect the dead, then why does God allow us to suffer and die in the first place?

A divinity school professor of mine would on occasion make the observation that whenever there is a high theory of salvation, you will undoubtedly find it accompanied by a very low conception of human nature. We are taking a journey through Lent. There is a reason why we don’t skip over Lent and go straight to Easter. The good news of Christ’s resurrection would not be as good if we did not accompany Jesus to the cross. If we did not hear the story of Jesus’ suffering, of Jerusalem destroyed, of Mary and Martha grieving, we would fail to recognize what God accomplishes in the resurrection. Without really knowing what it means to be human, we wouldn’t dare to hope as greatly; we wouldn’t dare to hope for the impossible.

This past week I spent some time with my extended family. We had gathered from far and wide to attend the funeral of my grandmother, and as such occasions are, it was a wonderful reunion. Besides hearing stories about my grandmother, I also got to hear perspectives on the relationship between North and South Korea from my relatives living in South Korea. My family is originally from the northern part of Korea, and my father still has his siblings living in North Korea. So you can imagine how interested we are in news about the state of affairs for the people of North Korea and how watchful we are for any signs of hope that their lives might improve. My uncle talked about feeling very moved by the televised performance of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Pyong Yang, the capital of North Korea. I listened attentively, because I didn’t get to see the broadcast. Then on the trip back to Chicago, I picked up the most recent issue of Time magazine, and in it I found an article entitled “Notes of Hope” written by journalist Bill Powell. Powell begins his article by admitting that foreign correspondents can be a pretty jaded lot and ends by describing the musical compositions played and the euphoric and emotional responses of the audience. For those who attended the concert, it was a momentous occasion, inspiring even hope. The question has been raised whether a concert, no matter how inspiring in spirit, can change living conditions in North Korea.

In any place where people face great suffering or seemingly impossible challenges, perhaps the best we can do is answer as Ezekiel did. When God asked him the question, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel answered, “O Lord God, you know.” It is true that we do not know the mysteries of life and death, but as long as we know that God rules over life and death, we still have much reason to hope.