BREATH OF LIFE

“I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin… but there was no breath in them.” Ezekiel 37:8

This haunting vision came during the time when the prophet Ezekiel was the shepherd of a flock of hopeless people; the preacher to a community forced into exile in Babylon. The people were lamenting: "Our… hope is lost… we are clean cut off"

Ezekiel finds himself in a death valley covered with dry, decayed, old bones! The Lord commanded Ezekiel to prophesy (that is to preach) to that great scattering of bones. So he did, and the more old Zeke preached, the more that began to happen!  Bones started snapping together like tinker toys, so Zeke kept right on preaching until the bones got to the point where they were all put together again. There were a million re-assembled skeletons, and they were over-laid with muscles and tendons, skin and features. In fact, they looked like regular people, but they were not regular people. They were not regular people because they didn't contain one critical element, one essential ingredient -- the "breath of life."  that could only come from one holy source -- from God!  A riveting story!  An incredible vision!

About as much as you and I can do, by ourselves, is to put together glorious skeletons and beautiful forms, and we are very good at it; good at providing ourselves with more or less comfortable lives. We can do that pretty much on our own - without God!

But the thing is we mistake what we put together for authentic life! We delude ourselves into thinking that we all we really need we can create; that we can provide for ourselves everything we need to fill us: physically, materially, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  It reminds me of the Pepsi commercial about a decade ago that starts out in a nursing home. The residents are sitting around looking bored, tired and despaired -- until -- those same bored, tired and despaired residents take a sip of (Pepsi), and suddenly, magically, they're transported to a beach scene with the bathing beauties and muscle bound bodies where everybody is rockin' and rollin' to upbeat music.

Tertullian, an early church theologian living around 200 A.D., wrote that every culture creates a set of illusions, a set of grand ideas that appear to be absolutely true looking at them from inside the culture, but in the end they are false, full of death; lies and delusions. His words have stunning relevance.  Certainly the most prevalent illusion of our culture is the illusion  that affluence however defined: status, power, money or materialism can meet the deepest needs of our souls. But can it? 

·        Can it empower us to forgive and reconcile, even within our own families when we deeply wound each other?  

·        Can it equip a husband and wife to forge an unshakable commitment and beautiful intimacy that truly fills? Or in the quest for the good life does it move people away from each other and render a relationship as cold as ice?

·        Can it provide us with a lasting purpose that fills, or does it makes us even more hungry?

·        Can it connect us with others, and open us to each other, or does it put us at odds with one another in countless subtle ways, cultivating mistrust, and leaving us lonelier than ever?

Like Ezekiel's vision suggests, there is always the temptation to be satisfied with putting on skin, flesh and muscle; the temptation to be complacent with putting together the FORM of a body, THE FORM OF LIFE, and mistaking it for authentic life!

"I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them."  Is that a description of us?

 In this morning’s gospel Jesus walks into an intense and troubled situation. Both Martha and Mary confronted Jesus with the sorrowful and angry cry, "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died."

I reflected this week on the lament of Mary and Martha; the fact that Jesus wasn't there when Lazarus' died. Mary and Martha felt that if Jesus would have been he could have prevented Lazarus’ death.  But it occurs to me. Jesus is not about preventing death, that's not what he's about. That's not what God is about. That's what we are about!  It's we who live our lives trying not to die:  We'll spend hours in the gym, health club, beauty salon, take supplements and get face lifts, investing in what ultimately is a fruitless cause: these frail bodies that are slowly dying no matter what we do to prevent, avoid or deny it. The best we can do is but postpone it for a short time.

God is not about the business of preventing death, or living not to die. That’s what we are about.  God is about the business of raising the dead to new life!

One of the things that Mary and Martha found out is that death stalks relentlessly, and it finally catches up with even the best of us. With all their love and devotion for their brother, he still died! Many of us have felt the same kind of helplessness and even anger as we've tried in vain to fill up our lives! The futility of doing all we can; doing all that we are able; doing all that we are capable -- AND -- the tragedy still happens -- the problem still occurs -- and the depression still sets in -- the anxiety still haunts us -- we are still disrupted by worry -- the divorce still happens; the illness still strikes.  In spite of all of our glorious attempts, we still live with an uneasy and fearful void.

The kind of life that we can generate is simply NOT CAPABLE OF PERMANENCE; not capable of really satisfying!  That's Tertullian's illusion in which we live!   

So what does Jesus do?  First he experiences our despair. He climbs in to our experience.  When he saw Mary grieving over the death of Lazarus, he grieved and wept right along with her. He too, like us, knows about the unfairness and pain and tragedy that gnaws away and discourages us!

But the next thing he did is what we cannot do! He walked right smack up to the entrance of that cave-like tomb and had the audacity  to shout into the black hole of death, "LAZARUS, YOU COME OUT OF THERE!"  Lazarus came stumbling out still half-wrapped in the clothes of death -- but alive!

Likewise, in Ezekiel's vision there was no life until the breath of God, the Spirit, entered the forms, which up to that point only resembled life.

Just as Ezekiel prophesied to the old dead bones; just as Jesus shouted to Lazarus enveloped in the black hole of death, so our Lord speaks to us; desires to breathe into us the breath of Life:

- breathe His breathe of life into our sorrow and despair and into the formless pain of our unfulfilled longing that has left us numb and unfulfilled, and bring us the promise that he can redeem our deepest wounds and begin to fill our haunting voids. 

- breathe His breathe of life into our guilt, regret and fractured lives and empower us to love and forgive, at least enough, that we may in turn "love our neighbor as ourselves!"

- breathe His breathe of life into our preventing, avoiding and denying, and give us a life that's based on an absolutely secure relationship with God in Jesus Christ that not even death can break!

Through Ezekiel the Lord told the people, "I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live."

Ezekiel's vision is more than a vision.  It's a reality that can begin to take shape in the present in and through Jesus Christ.  The joy and fulfillment he gives can never be taken away!