Allie Papke-Larson: The valley of dry bones

by Allie Papke-Larson
Ezekiel 37:1-14 | John 11:1-45 | 3/29/2020 

I love how dark and bold the two stories of resurrection we heard this Sunday are (Ezekiel calling life back into the Valley of Dry Bones and Jesus raising Lazarus). It feels truthful and honest to have stories in the Bible that speak to a dark truth about human life and spirituality. Sometimes I feel like I am moving through the motions of my life just to move through my life, but not actually to live it. It’s hard to talk about this state of living without talking in metaphor or story. It’s almost like we can’t quite speak directly to it or about it, because this feeling, of being neither dead or alive, is so vague, and yet so harsh. 

Today it feels like we are bones in the valley that Ezekiel has called to life. However, we have not yet made it to life, we are in the moments before, when by a miracle our bones which were once dry and bare, are now covered with flesh, but there is still no breath in us, no life. 

In verse 8 of Ezekiel, the prophet says: “I looked, and there were sinews on the bones, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.” The bones lay between life and death, no longer dry also not breathing. They are lingering in a state that seems unbearable and yet so familiar. 

We too find ourselves lingering between life and death, waiting for breath, waiting for the danger of this Coronavirus to pass, waiting for the uncertainty that has settled into our nation, into our churches, to pass... And yet we are still in the season of Lent. These things that we are waiting for will not come to us yet, Christ has not died, let alone risen, and this Coronavirus and its ramifications, may be with us for months, maybe years…

It is amazing to me just how quickly I can begin to feel worn by waiting, by feeling like the dry bones before breath has been called into them, neither alive to the world, nor dead to it. I am wondering why has God not breathed life into me? 

But this feeling is the reason we have the season of Lent. God knows God’s people so well, and knows that we easily feel worn out and doubt the breath of life that God has promised to us. The promise that God doesn’t leave the bones dry, nor the flesh breathless. Lent was not created to manipulate us to be self-reflective or sullen, but because we can feel lost in the waiting and lonely in the numbness; this season comes each year to help us acknowledge and honor our humanness. 

Right now, in this new season of social distancing, of covid-19, we can become numb and anxiety ridden; and it feels nothing like the promise of Easter, which we believe is coming too us soon. And it’s not supposed to. You see, right now, we are not ready for Easter. We are not ready for the resurrected Christ, that promise is still beyond our understanding. We are still waiting for it. So, if Easter arrives, and we are not ready for it, if we are not awake to the joy it brings, does this mean we miss out? If we cannot embrace Easter the way we wish we could, does that mean it misses us completely? 

The two miracles we read last Sunday, of breath entering the dead, were performed to reveal something about who God is. God led Ezekiel to the valley, the reading says “The hand of the Lord was on me…” and then God asks Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. Why would God ask a human to do something God could do God’s self? God values humans, and God desires 

interaction and relationship with us. Likewise, Jesus had a relationship with Lazarus, they were friends, and he was friends with Mary and Martha. His weeping at the loss of his friend and the pain of Mary and Martha in John 11:35 shows us what, or who, Jesus values; human relationships. 

These miracles do not take place because humans demanded them or needed them; but because God is offering life and relationship through them. Nor do miracles happen when humans wanted them too, I think about how those bones had to wait for so long they became dry and sun bleached; and the mourning of Mary and Martha. Surely if these miracles happen on human timelines, they would have taken place sooner, to avoid all pain. But miracles do not erase the suffering of humans, or, and again this reveals something about God, the pain that God feels due to human pain, think of Jesus weeping. 

During this season of Lent, God does not offer a pass on all our pain, an end to our waiting, or of covid-19. Instead God is calling us into relationship with God and with each other through the pain and the waiting. Remember, this is a God who puts God’s hand upon us and goes with us into the valley. 

It’s okay if we are unsure if we will be awake for the joy of Easter, because it is God who performs miracles, not humans, to be in relationship with us, and to walk into the valleys and tombs of our lives. And there is no hurry, our timeline means nothing to God, our impatience means little. God waits with us, with patience, and with an understanding of who we are. 

So, this year we will be celebrating Easter differently than we ever have before, in the midst of the valley of dry bones, knowing still, our God celebrates with us. 

Amen.

Allie Papke-Larson is Program Coordinator for Lutheran Campus Ministries/Canterbury Episcopal Campus Ministries at Northern Arizona University and Youth Director at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Flagstaff.