Dry Bones
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Sermon Lent 5, 22 March 2026
Readings: Ezekiel 37.1-14; Romans 8.6-11; John 11.1-45
Theme: Dry Bones
There are two human tendencies as to how we should confront the tragic dimensions of our lives which fall short of the appropriate Christian approach. The first is to erase tragedy by magic. This happens a great deal in children´s literature and television. Cartoons are a good example of this attitude. The violence meted out in these productions is quite extraordinary when you think about it, but nobody ever gets hurt, and the animations just bounce back to life as if nothing had happenedto them. It´s all magic.
Adults consume this genre of dealing with life through the whole range of superheroes and tough guys and gals which do the same, but in adult themes. The James Bond franchise is just one of many and while these are great entertainment, they seldom face up to the reality of the fragility of our mortal human lives. The 2021 James Bond film No Time To Die is an exception and introduced mortality to the immortal James Bond.However, the whole point of our fascination with superheroes is that they provide us with a magical fantasy realm in which painand suffering, the tragedy of life does not touch us. They are an escape from reality rather than an embrace of it in all its complexities.
The other inadequate human approach to the tragic dimension of life is to wallow in it. In this attitude to tragedy, we are consumed by the forces of negativity which envelop us in their far-reaching tentacles that suffocate the very life within us. Such an approach can leave us in a deep despair, and following the death of a loved one, a medical diagnosis or the ending of some of our hopes in life, we can struggle to keep our heads above the parapet of sliding into a depression as a result. In this second attitude, we fall prey to the dark forces which often threaten to engulf us by believing in the illusion that tragedy has the last word.
The three readings for our liturgy this Sunday present us with another way of facing the tragic dimensions of life. They propose neither an evasion of tragedy through a magical wish fulfilment that fails to face up to the gravity of fragility and tragedy in our lives, nor a sinking into the quagmire of deep depression as we are engulfed by it. The scriptures present us with hope in the face of tragedy, a hope which gives place to tragedy as a part of our lives, but which never gives the tragic dimension the final word because the final word is always taken by the hope which faith confers on us in the living Lord of life. This is the import of the resurrection in the lives of Christians which faces full on the tragedy of holy week but looks through this towards the horizon of resurrection which is God´s embracing of the tragic so that he can transform it into new life.
The first reading from the prophet Ezekiel is a fine example of the power of this hope in the Lord and is perhaps the best-known passage of this exilic prophet. He is prophesying from Babylon at the time of the fall of Judah in 587/586 BC, when the monarchy, the first temple and the great city of Jerusalem will be overrun by the enemy. It is a tragic moment in the history of Israel. But Ezekiel holds out hope for the people that one day those dry bones in exile will return home to new life.
This hope of new life is spoken of by Paul in the second reading according to the opposing concepts of the ‘flesh’ and the ‘spirit’: “The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” It will be the Holy Spirit who will breathe new life into the Christ to raise him from the dead, and it will be this same Spirit which will give new life to our dry bones as well.
Such a promise is given a very personal touch in the Gospel episode of the raising of the friend of Jesus, Lazarus. Here Jesus is deeply moved by the sadness of Martha and Mary at the death of their brother. We are told in the passage that Lazarus had been dead for four days when Jesus arrived, but this death willbe a cause of the recognition of who Jesus really is. He is the Messiah, the one whom the Israelites had been waiting for to give new life to their dry bones and to return them home.
And, so it is with us. Jesus is the one who will give new life to our dry bones. This promise of the Lord is one which comes just as we enter the season of Passiontide: the brief time just before Holy Week. As we turn our sights towards the beginning of Holy Week, with Palm Sunday next week, we do so with the hope of the resurrection on our horizon.
The horrible events of Holy Week should be understood as the stages by which these dry bones will be raised to new life. As in the death of his friend, Lazarus, the death of Jesus will be the cause of the recognition of who Jesus really is. The resurrection of Jesus reveals that the passage from death to life is one which returns exiles to their homeland in the New Jerusalem. Passiontide is the beginning of the entry of the Messiah into theforeign land of death, so that all exiles may be led out to the freedom of eternal life.
