Ezekiel
37:1-14; Acts 2:1-21
I
unashamedly admit one of my favorite American writers is Cormac McCarthy. Early on he wrote classics such as All the Pretty Horses and Twin Cities of the Plain. These were stories about young men dreaming
about things they could hardly understand.
As McCarthy got older, and darker, he wrote No Country for Old Men, followed by his masterpiece, The Road. My favorite quote by McCarthy is, “Where all
is known, no narrative is possible.” I
suspect that quote says everything about my love of the Bible. McCarthy speaks
to our text this morning when he writes, “When you dream of some world that
never was or will never be, you have given up.
Therefore dream of what was and of what might be again.”
I
place a high value on dreams. I am not referring
to the stuff that happens in your sub-consciousness as you sleep. I am talking about an active imagination that
remembers yesterday and celebrates the possibility of tomorrow.
Ezekiel
was a dreamer. He was also a priest to a
helpless and hopeless people who had lost their homes and families. One might easily forgive Ezekiel if he had
spent his entire ministry doing crisis counseling. That is something the exiles in Babylon could have
certainly used. A lament that fell from the lips of this inconsolable people
was,
Our bones are dried up,
Our hope is lost,
We are cut off completely.
Ezekiel’s
fellow exiles were at the bottom of the well.
They were living but as good as dead.
Words of reassurance could not cut through their despair. They could not
imagine anything good evolving from their experience. Ezekiel invited them to view reality through
the eyes of God. They were asked to believe that life was about to be
transformed from death. In the midst of the darkest moment in their history
Ezekiel wanted his people to discover the ever shining, ever inspiring, light
of God.
The
vision began in the valley of death.
Ever been there? Of course you
have. While today is Pentecost, tomorrow
is Memorial Day. I remember as if it
were yesterday, the first time I visited the Viet
Nam Memorial in Washington. I had heard about the impact The Wall had on
folks, but I thought I was beyond the memories and feelings that conflict
stirred within me. I went to the directory
and looked up the names of a couple friends from college. Then I proceeded to the section where I hoped
to find their names. As I started down
the slight incline, my legs become heavy as I was overwhelmed by the mass of humanity
on that granite wall. On reaching the
mid-point, emotions I thought I had long ago been resolved overwhelmed me and
my only desire was to reach the end of the memorial. As I started up, it was as if I was trying to
escape quicksand. The harder I struggled
the deeper I sank. Eventually I stepped
off the path, sat down in the grass and wept. I was filled with uncontrollable
remorse and overcome with emptiness. I
had visited the valley of death and it had left me barren…. void …..of all
life.
We
have all experienced such a wall. Nothing that anyone could say or do has much
of an impact when we are in our personal valley of death. At yet, when we are ready, each person, each
generation, needs to hear that the bones in our valley can live again. The people of Judah were no exception. While they were void inside, when they looked
into God’s eyes, they experienced a truth that turned loss into hope.
“Speak
to the breath, speak, and say to the breath, “Breathe on these slain that they
might live.” The breath of God…. the wind
or spirit of God…… the creating power of God has never been limited by worldly
vision. The author of that magnificent
poem in Genesis wrote, “The earth was chaotic and darkness covered the face of
the deep yet the wind of God swept through the waters and there was
light.” Ezekiel believed the holy wind
that creates can also become the sacred wind that restores. Ezekiel proclaimed that this wind, this
spirit of God could transform even the dead bones of Israel into a living,
breathing, liberated people. And he was proven
right.
Of
Course today we are not here to celebrate the restoration of Israel but
rather the day of Pentecost. It is hard
not to notice the parallels. The disciples were completely void of life
following the death of Jesus. Their leader
was gone, their hope non-existent.
Discouraged and uninspired, they gathered in the Upper Room, their own Valley of Death, to say their good-byes and return
to their former lives. In the midst of
a stillness that was not to be confused with tranquility, their bereavement was
interrupted by the wind, the very breathe of God, penetrating the walls of
their closed quarters. The darkness that
pressed into every corner of their empty souls was exposed and then expunged by
a flame that burned with the eternal truth, “You are not alone. Your God lives.”
This
sudden emergence of holy fire must have almost given them a coronary. Folks can get comfortable in their grief. It can lead to a complacency that excuses us
from further engagements in this life’s complex endeavors. We spend our entire existence on the playing
field and suddenly, torn by circumstances out of our control, we find comfort
on the sidelines. We watch, rather than
participate. We complain rather than
becoming agents for change. Some even
welcome their own demise, actually embracing the Valley of Death.
Into this darkness, into this lifeless
existence, the Holy Wind dares enter in an act of defiance that reminds us God
is always in the process of creating life even in the midst of our chaos.
Most
of us are, how to I politely say this, mature enough to remember when Paul Simon
pinned these words:
When you are weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I
will dry them all.
I’m on your side.
When times get rough and friends
can’t be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I‘ll lay me down.
While
I love those words, they do not adequately describe the transforming Spirit of
God. The Pentecost explosion, the
Pentecost outbreak did not occur because God built a bridge over the world’s waters
of discontent. God jumps right into the currents
of our lives. God steps within our raging souls. God takes our pain, our
confusion, our discord and even our disbelief and says, “You are not alone.”
What
else could have inspired Peter to walk into the streets of Jerusalem and proclaim, “Your young will have
visions and your old men will dream dreams.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” It took Peter a lot more than courage to kick-start
Christianity. It took a holy wind, a
holy spirit, a holy word that promised God would not send him into the darkness
alone. My friends:
The God of creation,
the God of resurrection,
Walks in and out of our Valley of Death.
The God of dreams,
The God of visions,
Fashions hope out of
nightmares.
The God of Easter,
The God of Pentecost,
Transforms,
Reforms,
But never
conforms,
To
deaths limited imagination.
We
might be old,
We might be on our last legs,
But we who can still hope,
Remember
what was,
and what might be again.
We
remember creation,
We remember Easter,
We remember Pentecost.
And
because we remember,
Because we believe,
We dream,
Of God’s Holy Wind,
We dream,
Of God’s Holy Spirit,
We dream,
Of God’s Covenantal Words,
FEAR NOT;
I AM WITH YOU;
ALWAYS!
Take that promise.
Bury it in your personal valley of
death.
Put on something red.
Then listen for the
wind of God.
Trust me,
The Spirit of Pentecost is alive
in this place.
To God be the glory. Amen
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