SERMON 22March2026  “Where Life Is Called Forth”

We began this Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday, and here we are the fifth Sunday of Lent. Lent is the season that follows Jesus into the wilderness. A time to look inward, to search the soul. To sit with what we find there. And in that wilderness, over these past weeks, we have met some people. Nicodemus. A woman at a well. A man born blind. In each of those encounters, we saw ourselves.

Today, in the middle of that same wilderness, we witness something different. A vision. Ezekiel’s vision. A valley, full of bones. Dry bones. And God asks a question that stops everything: “Can these bones live?” I want to stand with you in front of that question today. And I want to turn it around and ask it of ourselves. How are we living? And what are we slowly dying towards?

Because whether we realise it or not, we are all living towards something. And dying towards something. Are we living towards the accumulation of things that will never be enough? Holding on to old prejudices that keep us small? Putting our own needs first, while the people around us have simply stopped mattering?

Lent is the season for dying to those things. And at the same time, it is the season for becoming hope in places of decay. For breathing life into the fearful and forgotten. Today, Ezekiel’s vision will show us the way.

Ezekiel 37. When we read it, we are not simply reading. We are stepping into the valley.

Turn on the news and you know the images. A city on fire. Streets reduced to rubble. People fleeing, carrying whatever they could, leaving behind everything they called home. Thousands of years ago, that is exactly what happened to Ezekiel’s people.

Ezekiel himself was one of the exiles. He had lost his home. He was a stranger in a land that was not his own. So when he saw that valley full of dry bones, it was not just a vision. It was a portrait of his own people. Scattered. Exhausted. With no expectation that anything would ever change.

Exile and return. This is a thread that runs through the entire story of Scripture. The Garden of Eden was lost. Slavery in Egypt. Forty years wandering in the wilderness. And now, Babylon, in what we today call Iraq. Again and again, far from home. And in the middle of that loss, they found God. Ezekiel’s valley is the most devastating expression of that story. Homeless. The life drained out. No hope that things could ever be different.

God asks Ezekiel a question. “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel does not rush to answer. “O Lord God, you know.” That is all he says. I don’t know. Only you know. What an answer. Ezekiel does not manufacture hope. He does not paste a smile over the devastation. He stands in front of it, honestly. And we need to learn that. Because when we rush to say “it’ll be fine” before someone has had a chance to feel how broken things are, we are not comforting them. We are erasing them.

Then God says, ‘Prophesy to these bones.’ Prophesy? To bones? To dead, dry bones that cannot even hear? But Ezekiel prophesies. And there is a sound. A rattling. Bone connects to bone. Tendons form. Flesh appears. Skin covers. But there is no breath. The form is there, but the life is not.

I want to stop here for a moment. Because this in between stage matters. A body with no breath. We know this state. Going through the motions but feeling nothing. Showing up to church but running on empty. Sitting at the same table as the people we love, but not really reaching each other.

Then God speaks again. “Prophesy to the breath. Come from the four winds, from every direction, from every corner of creation, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” And the breath comes. And they live. And they stand. A great multitude on their feet again.

Every time I hear this story, one question stays with me. Where are the dry bones today? We do not have to look far. They are here, in our community. In this city. Someone worn down by years of illness, with nothing left to give. Someone who has carried their loneliness for so long they have stopped expecting it to change.

Someone who has lost their reason to get up in the morning. People caught in relationships so tangled and difficult that no one quite knew how to help, and so, quietly, they were forgotten. Valleys we have learned to walk around, because it is easier not to go in. And perhaps, even in this room.

What are we saying to those valleys? Are we speaking life? Or are we silent? Or worse, are we standing over someone who is already on the ground, asking how they ended up there?

Words have power. But sometimes words are not enough. Ezekiel did not prophesy from a safe distance. He walked into the valley. And sometimes that is what is asked of us too. Not to shout “it’ll get better” from across the street. But to go in. To sit down. To stay.

And then there is the most uncomfortable question of all. What if we are the dry bones? What if the form is there, but the breath is not? We come. We show up. We go through the motions.

But somewhere along the way, the life has quietly drained out. The grip of material things that never satisfy. Prejudices we have carried so long they have become invisible to us. Living in our own little world, with no room for anyone else.

Lent is the season for facing that honestly. For not looking away from the dry places within us. That is why this season is uncomfortable. So, that is why we cannot skip it. God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. And the bones lived.

God can do the same in us. The wind can blow, and life can come. That is the hope of this Lenten journey towards resurrection. And the Gospel today takes that hope one step further.

John 11. Lazarus is dead. Mary and Martha are weeping. Jesus arrives. But he does not go straight to the tomb. He sees Mary weeping. He sees the people around her weeping. And the Scripture says simply: “Jesus wept.”

One of the shortest verses in the Bible. And one of the most powerful. God did not stand at a distance. God walked into the valley. Sat down in the grief. And then spoke towards the tomb. “Lazarus, come out.” Just as Ezekiel prophesied to the bones, Jesus spoke to the dead. And the dead came out.

These two stories are telling us the same thing. God does not avoid the valley. That is exactly where God goes. And weeps. And calls forth life. And we are called to do the same. To walk into the hard places. To weep with those who weep. To speak life from within the grief. And when words are not enough, to let our very presence be the word.

Lent is almost over. Easter is coming. But resurrection does not come without the valley. Jesus walked that road. And we are walking it too. Today, God is asking us the question. “Can these bones live?” And our answer must be the way we live.