"Second Wind" - Ezekiel 37:1-14 - June 8, 2003

The prophet Ezekiel appealed to the faith community (the House of Israel) to turn from their sinful ways and turn to God. Although they were God’s chosen, they failed. Ezekiel proclaimed they were doomed because of their nationalism. They had become arrogant and filled with righteous indignation. God was displeased and the nation of Israel collapsed and was totally destroyed. After 586 BC Ezekiel changed his message from doom to hope. Now that they had suffered from the judgment of God he assured them that God would become known to them once more by giving them the opportunity to begin anew.

In this passage we have a historical miracle where God breathes new life into the faith community in the valley of dry bones. In this totally lifeless place God asks Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" Ezekiel responds by saying, "Only you (God) can know." Then God tells Ezekiel to preach to the bones and say to them, "O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord…Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live."

Ezekiel prophesied as commanded. "There was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together and flesh came upon them." God then told Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath (or wind, or spirit) that they might live. Ezekiel preached to the breath and the bones lived and stood up and God promised they would be raised from their graves.

This event in the life of the faith community is not unlike what happened at Pentecost. Just as the church was given life by the Holy Spirit when "sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind," the faith community in Ezekiel’s day was given new life with breath coming from the four winds. At Pentecost (Acts, chapter 2) after being filled with the spirit of God, the faith community is reminded that God also had the power to raise Jesus from the dead. "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

God is a God of resurrecting power. God breathes new life into the lifeless. God can make dry bones live and God’s spirit has the power of infusion, to bring people together. But, just how God works is a real mystery to us. How do we in today’s world know that God can still create life from dry bones? What, if anything, does Ezekiel’s prophesy have to do with us?

After I finish my morning workout at the "Y," I run a mile. When I reach the 1/4 mile mark I start breathing heavy. The thought of running another 3/4 mile is not very exciting. In fact, there have been many times when I say to myself, "Why am I doing this?" When I reach the 1/3 mark I seem to get stronger and my breathing becomes regular instead of labored. This must be what they call the "second wind."

I can’t explain this phenomenon but I have experienced it again and again. I know that after running the last several years that at some point in the run I will receive new breath that enables me to continue.

Perhaps the dry bones that Ezekiel preached to received a second wind. Somehow God is able to generate new life with fresh new air. The same God who resurrected the dry bones of the House of Israel resurrected Jesus. Just when we humans think there is no way, God surprises us with new life. Just when all seemed hopeless for the fledging church, God breathed new life into the gathered body of believers who have stood the test of time.

I am not a professional runner. But I am aware that there are several conditions that help to generate that second wind experience. For example, adequate rest, proper diet, warming up the muscles and the discipline of scheduling regular periods of exercise are all necessary conditions to be able to run any distance.

The same could be said for a second wind from God. There are a few conditions that will help us to experience it. First, you have to "hear" the word of the Lord. God told Ezekiel to say, "O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." In other words Ezekiel was instructed to remind the faith community of God’s word. Although they had sinned and their nation was destroyed it didn’t erase the fact that they had some understanding of God’s word.

In my first parish I had an evening adult Bible study. One of the people in the group was an elderly, rather wealthy woman, in her eighties, who came faithfully. One evening she startled the group by making a confession. She said that she had always heard the word of God as "prose." She never really realized that God’s word has meaning and relevance to our daily lives. Here was a woman who had attended church all her life but the "word" of God had never sunk in.

I know the feeling. I can preach to the same people until I am blue in the face and nothing ever seems to change. Perhaps folks need to reach a state of complete devastation before they truly are capable of hearing what God has to say. "O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord."

I find it interesting that the scene is this story is amazingly vivid. "The valley was full of bones and there were many and they were very dry." The scene is one of complete death and totally lifeless. Nothing is happening. There is no movement, no evidence of humanity. The dry bones have ceased to exist. I believe that this may be the key to God’s resurrection power. Before there can be life, there must be death. Before one can experience newness, one must be willing to bury the past. Before we can awaken to new realities we must be willing to let old realities go.

In her book, At Wit’s End, Erma Bombeck tells the story about the time she decided to reshuffle her priorities. A friend of hers had died which left her vulnerable, confused and doubtful about life. She felt like she should just draw all of her savings out of the bank and go to Tahiti. She felt like taking all of her plastic dishes and running over them with her car. She wanted to throw all of her imitation flowers away and replace them with live ones.

Instead she decided to rearrange her life. She made a vow. She said she was not going to be like the woman on the Titanic, the one who climbed into a lifeboat facing an uncertain future and sobbed in anguish. "If I had known this was going to happen, I’d have had the chocolate mousse for dessert."

Erma decided to make some changes. She would live each day as if it was her last. She took the big candle in the sitting room that was shaped like a rose and gathering dust and lit it. She fixed her car window, the one that had a crack in it but the one that her husband and she had decided not to replace until they bought a new car. She invited some old friends to dinner whom they saw at sixteen weddings. They were always saying, "We’ve got to get together." She opened a big tin of fish and baked it for dinner although no one else liked fish. She had always thought to cook it would be wasteful. Then she washed her hands with a piece of pink soap, shaped like a sea shell, the one they were always saving because it was so special. Erma Bombeck found her second wind.

Resurrection is prevented by our unwillingness to let go. It is not until we are willing to die until we can really live. This is true with all areas of life. Grudges against people, the stubbornness to forgive, perpetuating old habits, hanging on to stuff all prevent us from the newness that God wants us to experience. In other words, God is always ready to give us that second wind, but we must be willing to rearrange our lives and give God a chance to work.

Lastly, for the spirit of God to work we must be ready for some noise. On the day of Pentecost there was "a sound from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind." When Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones, "there was a noise, and behold, a rattling." In each of these events the spirit of God is accompanied with noise.

New life doesn’t happen without the sounds of construction. When a house is being built you hear buzz saws, hammers, drills and bulldozers. Those sounds frequently wake babies from sleeping and make it hard for those on third shift to get their sleep. Those sounds, however represent newness, a new home constructed where no home stood before.

Although the spirit of God works in amazing ways we can still condition ourselves to prepare for God’s resurrecting power in our midst. We can hear the word of God and respond. We can let those things die in our lives which are preventing us from growing and in the process we can expect some noise.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio