We are living in stressful times.
I think that I can safely say that most of us—if not all of us—are
somewhere between “kind of stressed” to extremely anxious. An infectious disease outbreak can do that to
a person because they are one of the most distressing forms of disaster to deal
with psychologically because of the uncertainty they cause. With other disasters we know what we are up
against if they impact us because we know that we have survived and that the
worse is over once the event is over.
COVID-19 is a whole different creature . . . an unknown . . . that we
know very little about. It is creepy to
think that we are dealing with something we know nothing about, that it is
among us, and that it isn’t going away without a fight to come back another
day. It is weird to think that it is not
acting alone . . . that it recruits carriers who unknowingly spread the virus
putting the lives of others at risk . . . and, that we could potentially be
that carrier.
Thus, it is that we are doing the things that the government and health
experts have asked us to do. We have
practiced social distancing . . . we stay six feet apart if we go out into the
public . . . we stay home except to do the essential business we need to do to
stay home . . . we clean everything we touch . . . and, we wash our hands
constantly. We have shut down schools,
businesses, and houses of worship. We
are living our lives in a new reality . . . a reality we are not used to. And, it is stressful.
It is stressful to be separated from what we know . . . separated from
how we normally live . . . and stressful to be challenged to think differently
about what we always thought about life and God’s presence in all of it. Such stressfulness can make us feel helpless
and hopeless in the time of this pandemic.
Remember, we are not alone.
Think back to the scripture reading we heard earlier . . . about
Ezekiel’s vision. Ezekiel was a prophet
called by God to prophesize to the people . . . the people who ignored God’s
call upon their lives, refused to listen to the warnings, and then received
their consequences as the Babylonians came and destroying their homeland,
killing its people, and hauling the survivors back to Babylonia to live in
exile. These were a people who had lost everything . . . families and friends,
homes and businesses, and the Temple where God dwelled. They were cut off from God. They had lost it all! Here was a stressed group . . . here was a
group who had lost all hope. Losing it
all put them among the walking dead for they considered themselves as being as
good as dead.
It was to this group of people—God’s people—that Ezekiel is called upon
to speak and share the vision God has given him. It is a grim vision of a battlefield strewn
with the bones of all those killed . . . a stark reminder to those who stumble
upon it. For as far as Ezekiel can see
he sees bones . . . lifeless, dry bones.
And, God questions him, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I imagine that Ezekiel thought to himself that there wasn’t any chance
these bones could ever live, but he deferred by answering God: “Sovereign
Lord, you alone know.” From that
point on we witness in the story the power and glory of God as God makes those
bones come to life. God tells the
prophet to prophesy the word of the Lord . . . that God will bring them to life
. . . that they will live once again.
And, it happened just as God said it would.
It was a pretty elaborate and powerful demonstration and illustration being
provided to Ezekiel about the people of Israel . . . about what God could and
would do for them. God wanted them to
know that if God could bring bones back to life, surely God could do the same
for them as a people. Such was the
message Ezekiel was to deliver to the people stuck in exile.
It was a message of hope for an exiled people still mourning the loss of
family and friends, home, business, and temple . . . still mourning their way
of life . . . of relating to God. There
is hope in the darkness they were enduring.
Standing in the multitude of dry bones brought back to life, the people
are offered a new alternative of reality and of relating to God. Because God is present, they can breathe . .
. stand ready for the future . . . and look forward in hope.
I like that idea of “they could now breathe”. How many times have we been told to “calm
down and breathe” when we have been stressed out and hit full panic mode? God is telling them that they are not
abandoned just because they have lost their homeland and the temple. No, God is still with them . . . God tells
them, “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live . . . then you will
know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it.
”
I think that the message that Ezekiel shares is relevant to us in this
time of pandemic. We are not alone; God
is with us . . . God will always be with us.
Through these uncertain times . . . through the stress of it all . . .
God is with us . . . and, we will pull through it. We will pull through it, but we are quickly
learning that it will not be life as it once was . . . it won’t be “new life”,
but “renewed life”. Ezekiel’s vision is
a resurrection story, but not a pretty one.
But resurrection stories are not pretty because resurrection is not new
life, not the perfect promise of newborn baby, but renewed life, life that is
forged from death . . . even the risen Jesus bore his scars. It is a message of hope born out of
brokenness . . . a new beginning. God is
present.
In these uncertain times our worry and stress can become barriers
blocking us from living our lives in love with God and others. Our worry and stress can blind us to the
presence of God . . . God’s grace and love . . . and, God’s call to love as we
have been loved. It is ironic that this
pandemic is exploding during the season of Lent . . . that it has become our
vision of the valley of dry bones. It
has made us stop, think, and recalculate our bearings of how we relate to God
and to one another. It is a whole new
way of seeing God and others, and how we respond.
We need to remember; God is with us.
Because of this we have hope in the time of pandemic . . . hope in our
worry and stress. We are not alone; we
are the children of God. We just need to
breathe and know . . . God is with us . . . always with us . . . so, lets get
with God. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment