Ezekiel 37:1-14
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
May 24, 2026
The good news of Pentecost is that, in meeting our challenges and making the most of our chances, we can avail of a strength, energy and wisdom from beyond us – we can move forward in life by a divine-human collaboration in which God makes the biggest contribution – and, as we make our modest contribution, we can be carried along by a power far greater than our own – like a traveler walking down an airport moving sidewalk or a pilot flying across country in the flow of the jet stream.
We must not, however, let those two analogies lead us to think we don’t need to receive from God our life and our power to contribute to the collaboration as well.
One biblical verse sums up a message in many scriptures. Ephesians 2:5 says, “When we were dead through our sin, God made us alive together with Christ.” Corpses don’t raise themselves, and thus we owe our existence, our everything, to God. Apart from God’s gratuitous goodness, we are – spiritually and ethically – no more than dry, dusty bones incapable of doing anything. But by His gratuitous goodness we become – through His breathing into us His breath of life – flesh and blood, living creatures who have a high destiny of witness and service to fulfill.
In a time when the Israelites were in exile from their homeland and had lost their hope for the fulfillment of God’s high destiny for them, “the hand of the Lord” came upon the prophet Ezekiel and set him down in the middle of a valley full of dry bones. The Lord led Ezekiel “all around” that vast expanse of skeletal debris, immersing him in the full reality of a fatal fiasco from human failure. Then, the Lord assigned Ezekiel a task which, from a purely human view, seemed destined for failure. The Lord told Ezekiel to “prophesy” to the dry bones and command them to hear the word of the Lord. That word was that God would give those dry bones flesh and breath, and make them alive.
God resurrected them in two steps. At first those desiccated skeletal remains regained flesh but still lacked life. So God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy again, only this time not to the bones, but to the breath or Spirit of life. (The same Hebrew word means both.) And, as Ezekiel prophesied, the breath of God’s Spirit came into the “slain” and “they lived, and stood on their feet.”
The Lord then announced that the vast multitude whom He’d raised from the grave represented “the whole house of Israel” and that He’d soon return them to their homeland where they’d resume their life together in community. And there on their “own soil”, they would together as community know that their Lord had spoken and “will act” – will act again and again, as for example He acted much later in history with the spiritually dead of Ephesus whom He made “alive together with Christ”.
God at every point in history brings the dead back to life and enables them to fulfill His call, as Isaiah put it, to be “a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”.
We call Pentecost the birthday of the church. At Pentecost the Spirit brought forth a community, but one meant for more than just taking care of its own. The community was to take care of those not yet, and maybe not ever, a part of it. If you read on in the book of Acts after its account of Pentecost, you see how the Spirit kept pushing the believers outward to get past their parochial preoccupation with people like them and to reach out further and further afield to bring the good news of Jesus to folks from every nation. The Spirit never forgot that, on the day He returned to heaven, Jesus promised to send down the Spirit to give His followers a “power from on high” that would propel them, in ever enlarging circles of concern, to be His “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.
In all sorts of ways, and in all sorts of places, the Spirit works with and through those who seek to fulfill the Great Commission. Let me give one illustration of how this divine-human witness might unfold.
The Spirit sets up for us divine appointments ahead of time and, even if we’re unaware of what He’s up to, leads us to those with open minds and hearts, that Jesus might introduce Himself to them through us. With a friend, a stranger, a co-worker or a sales clerk, we may give a witness that’s no more than a “God bless you!” with a smile; but our passing word and small gesture of kindness might, by the Spirit’s hidden work, lead to a conversation then or later, or spark in the person a line of thought which we never learn about. The Spirit knows what each person needs and when they’re most receptive, and uses us to bless them though we know nothing of what’s happening. And if the person keeps thinking about something we said, the Spirit amplifies and clarifies it to draw them into an inner communication deeper than any we’re privileged to eavesdrop on.
Maybe we feel we can add nothing to the fulfillment of the Great Commission but a few dry old bones of good intention; but God doesn’t need anything from anyone but some availability and a willingness to try. The Spirit makes up for our shortcomings.
So hHHOhow do we avail of the Spirit’s help and allow Him to work in and through us?
Considering that question, James K.A. Smith in his book, Imagining the Kingdom, reflects on falling asleep. Only a few of us can choose to fall asleep and then immediately nod off.
But all of us can at least choose to do things that are conducive to falling asleep: keep a regular sleep schedule, moderate the light and noise and temperature of our bedroom, lie down in a position that relaxes our body, close our eyes, regulate our breathing. But almost none of us can make ourselves fall asleep. In fact, the best way to stay awake is try too hard to fall asleep. We just do what is in our power to welcome its coming and then wait for sleep to take over and take us into dreamland.
In the same way, we cannot make the Spirit come upon us and draw us up into a more fruitful life of witness. We can just practice the spiritual disciplines like prayer, worship, service and giving that welcome His coming – and then wait for Him to take over and enable us to make a difference we never could on our own.
In the end, it will be all God’s doing, or it won’t happen at all. For spiritually we are, apart from God, just dry dead bones; and only the Spirit’s breath of life can raise us above the dust of our defeats and draw us up into our destiny to be Jesus’ spiritually reproducing disciples.
Come, Holy Spirit, come like a mighty wind; and fill us with Your breath of life and love and light!
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