Word of Life

OT Lesson: Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NLT)

The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”

“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “You alone know the answer to that.”

Then He said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

So I spoke this message, just as He told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.

Then He said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”

So I spoke the message as He commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!’”

NT Lesson: John 11:1-45 (NRSV)

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom You love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, He said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

Then after this He said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to Him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone You, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, He told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that He was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met Him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for You.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to Him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, she knelt at His feet and said to Him, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how He loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to Him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank You for having heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that You sent Me.’ When He had said this, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. I am glad that we don’t have snow today. Last Friday evening around 7PM, I came to church and saw a bat flying in the hallway vigorously. I hurried into my room and shut the door to keep it out of my room. There is an inside door between my room and the church office. While I was working in my room, I saw the bat was flying toward me from the church office. I screamed and waved to send it back to the church office. The bat flew back, and looked back at me like it was looking at a crazy person. I wondered how it came into the office because the office door was shut and locked. Then later I saw the bat going into the PPM director’s office by crawling under the door. I guess that was like a crawl space for bats. So after the bat came out of the office, I blocked the small space under the all three office doors with magazines. Roy Flanary is working with a pest control company, and I hope that this problem will be solved as soon as possible. But you don’t have to worry about the bat for now because I didn’t see it last night. Either it must be sleeping somewhere now or must have left the building hopefully. 

Next Sunday is the Palm Sunday, and we will have the monthly communal luncheon. The lunch is supposed to be on the second Sunday, but the session estimated that many people may have already scheduled lunch with families on Easter Sunday. So the lunch will be next Sunday. And it is not a pitch-in, so you don’t have to bring anything. We will celebrate the triumphant Palm Sunday with a pizza party.

Jesus Is the First Fruit of Resurrection

Today’s NT lesson is a very famous story. Jesus raises dead Lazarus from the tomb. You may wonder if this is the first case of resurrection because Lazarus was dead and raised back to life even before Jesus died and rose again. But the answer is no. Jesus is the first fruit of resurrection and the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is the first fruit of resurrection.1 There are many more people who were dead and brought back to life in the Bible. For example, Elijah raised a dead boy. His successor Elisha also raised a dead boy back to life. And Jesus also raised a twelve year old dead girl back to life. And there was also a group of dead people came back to life recorded in the gospels. After the death of Jesus, there was a big earth quake which torn the curtain in the Holy of Holies into two pieces and split the rock of the temple. At the same time, the earth quake opened the tombs in the cemetery and many dead people raised back to life.2 But those are not the resurrection. Those cases are simply coming back to life. Then what is the difference between the resurrection and simple coming back to life? The coming back to life is regaining the life of your body, restoring the previous shape of your body while the resurrection is gaining the new and eternal life with the glorious form of your body just like it is recorded in the Gospels concerning the body of Jesus after resurrection. In this way, many people came back to life but Jesus is so far the only one who resurrected.

Put Our Hope in God

Anyway, Jesus heard the news that Lazarus is deadly sick who is the brother of His beloved disciples, Mary and Martha. But the interesting thing is that Jesus intentionally stayed two more days. Jesus was in Galilee, and they were at Bethany near Jerusalem in Judea. And it takes many days for Jesus and his party to travel to Judea. It was like you have to walk from Louisville, Kentucky to Lebanon, Indiana. So Jesus actually was waiting for Lazarus to die for sure.

On the internet you can find many people who had near death experience if you google it. They all have very interesting stories. I don’t know how much I can believe them. I believe somewhat. Anyway those people used to be dead for a few hours or so. But Jesus waited for Lazarus to be fully dead until when there is no hope. So Lazarus was dead for four days and there was a strong stinky stench. There was no hope at all for Lazarus to come back to life. So when the life does not treat us well, and when evil things pile up in our life, evil upon evil, maybe God is waiting for us to sink down to the very bottom until we lose all earthly hope just like Ezekiel in today’s OT lesson cries out that all hope is gone.3 Because at that moment, we may put our hope one hundred per cent in God, and lean on God completely. So when our life is gloomy, where there is no sunlight but only the dark clouds covering the entire sky, and there is no hope for us, that is the very time for us to put our trust and hope in God and God only. Who knows that there is a dramatic flip and overturn waiting for us at the end of the drama?

Breath, Wind, Life

In today’s OT lesson, something very cool happens. It was not a real thing but a vision which Ezekiel saw. In the Bible, many prophets and apostles saw tons of visions. Most of them, I just think ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ But there are three visions that I really want to see myself. One is the New Jerusalem from the Revelation. The other is the vision of Isaiah on his purification of his lips. And the last one is today’s OT lesson. Dry bones—not fresh bones—assemble themselves, muscles and flesh form over the bones, and the skins cover it to make the complete human bodies. I can’t imagine how great the scene will be. Anyway, the dry bones means that those people had been dead for a very long time. So no hope whatsoever. The dry bones became the human bodies, but they were not yet alive. They were like freshly died corps. When God put His breath into them, they came to life. So the breath is the key. Let’s think about the breath. In Hebrew, it is רוּחַ‎ (ruach) and in Greek πνεῦμα (pnyuma). Both of them have three basic meanings: wind, breath, and spirit. When Adam and Eve sinned against God in the garden, they heard the sound of the Lord at the time of the evening breeze.4 This breeze in Hebrew is רוּחַ (ruach). So we can translate the verse like this: “With the רוּחַ (ruach) of God, the wind or the Spirit of God, Adam and Eve knew that God was there in the garden.” Today’s OT lesson in English uses those words of wind, breath, and spirit. And in Hebrew, they are all רוּחַ (ruach). So when God says “I am going to put breath into you and make you live again!”, in Hebrew God is also saying, “I am going to put my Holy Spirit into you and make you live again!” That is, we will live again, we will come back to life even if we die, and we will resurrect like Jesus with eternal life but only when the Spirit of God comes into us. Without the Holy Spirit on us and in us, there is no life and no salvation. Today’s OT lesson once again testifies this and says: “Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.” 

Word of Life

Back to the NT lesson, in the long run, Jesus raised dead Lazarus back to life. And how did He do that? He spoke a word to Lazarus, and the life went back into the dead man. So the word of Jesus is the word of life. In the OT lesson, it is very similar. God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy and to say the word of God, and then the dead bones came back to life. It is what the Holy Spirit did, but the very interesting thing is this: God commanded Ezekiel, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds.”5 The wind is רוּחַ (ruach), that is the Spirit. So in fact, we can command the Holy Spirit, and Ezekiel did actually command the Holy Spirit and said, “Come, O breath,” that is רוּחַ (ruach), the Spirit, “from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.” Ezekiel commanded the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit shockingly and interestingly obeyed! The Holy Spirit made those dead people live again, but Ezekiel made the Holy Spirit move. So in this case, the word of Ezekiel is eventually the word of life. In the same way, Jesus came all the way from Galilee to Bethany in Judea walking along the interstate because Mary and Martha sent Him a message. So even though Jesus raised dead Lazarus back to life, it was Mary and Martha who moved Jesus. And again in this case, the words of Mary and Martha are the words of life.

Conclusion

There is a Contemporary Christian song by Hawk Nelson and the title is Words. Some of the lyrics is this: “Words can build you up. Words can break you down. Start a fire in your heart or put it out. Let my words be life.” Truly words can hurt, wound, and even kill. But words can also encourage, energise, and make people live again. So with our mouths, what are we going to say? It is our choice. We can hurt our friends, wound our family, and kill others. Or we can encourage our friends, energise our family, and make others live again. We’ve got to make our words be the words of life. Jesus says in Luke 6, “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”6 If we speak out poisonous words, it proves that we are the vipers. If we speak out the words of life, it proves that we are the children of the living God. So what are we? Are we the poisonous and venomous vipers which will eventually fall into the bottomless abyss, burning in the unquenchable fire forever? Or are we the true heirs of the living God who will ascend into the kingdom of heaven where we will glory with our Saviour Jesus Christ forever? Friends, let us speak out the words of life, the words of Jesus Christ. And by doing that, let us heal our neighbours, encourage our friends, energise other people, and make our own family live again just as Mary and Martha did with their words of life. Then we will go to heaven together with our families, friends, and anyone we love where we will live happily ever after together. Amen.