From time to time, some of you have heard me observe that scripture meets us where we are at any point in time. Turning this around, another way of expressing it is that where we are at any point in time affects what we see in scripture.
What I’m talking about here is not critical academic interpretation or exegesis, but a matter of the heart. The visceral way in which a lesson or psalm moves us at any point in time.
This morning, following yesterday’s feast of the Annunciation, which marks Mary’s acceptance of Gabriel’s message that she will become the bearer of God’s son, I find myself still affected by Mary’s absolute trust in the Word and her willingness to embrace such an improbable proposition. It is this absolute trust in and unconditional willingness to embrace prophecy as the promise of God that rocks me to my core.
For me, this utter willingness to embrace something that has no precedent casts an entirely different outlook on today’s lessons as we enter this next to last week of Lent. Like bones reanimated by prophesying, and Lazarus called forth from the grave; I feel reanimated and revived by Mary’s example.
Despite their desperate settings, today’s stories of reanimation are reminders of the expectation Mary held and the hope we hold before us this Lent as we walk the path together toward Jerusalem, Holy Week and the Paschal Mystery. Like the witnesses of Lazarus’ death, it is not unreasonable to ask, how is it possible to feel reanimated and revived after all the breath-taking misadventures we’ve experienced over the past three years? For now, life as we were accustomed to it may still seem beyond our reach. In fact, it may even feel as if it’s still turned on its head.
Yet, despite the accumulated baggage of our experience, I do find comfort in the lessons of this Fifth Sunday in Lent. The valley of the dry bones and the calling forth of Lazarus from the grave may be examples of what we think are hopeless causes. Nonetheless, through God’s presence, these hopeless causes are transformed into acts that shatter our expectations and challenge our understanding. These acts remind us that extraordinary things can happen if we remember the seemingly small things and focus upon them as opposed to being distracted by the massive and scary things we have no control over. The best we can do is to look inwardly and reflect upon our personal shambles, reflect upon who has been affected by them try, and to try to revive those relationships.
But how can stories of dried out bones in the wilderness and a stinking corpse affect the way we are feeling or thinking? The story of the desiccated bones is about the power of God’s Word – or prophesying – to restore life to a vanquished people; the people of Judea who are in exile in Babylon about 600 years before Jesus is raising Lazarus from the dead. Each of these stories is about people having their breath taken away from them – literally and figuratively – by the powers of the world, such as geopolitical ambition and folly, and simple sin, otherwise known as putting one’s self-interest before God and one’s neighbor. While we can rail about geopolitical ambition and folly, the most effective but uncertain recourse for this is intensive and conspicuous advocacy and prayer. Whereas for simple sin, because it is about us, we can definitely have a tangible impact if were willing to acknowledge how we may have grieved God and/or our neighbor.
In Ezekiel’s account, it is the hope revealed by prophesying, the image of God’s breath prevailing even as the exiles may feel all is lost – so lost that they haven’t only lost their breath but have been reduced to a pile of lifeless bones. It is a prophecy of what is to come, the return of exiles to Jerusalem and Judea that revives those who have lost hope.
In Jesus’ account, he allows an illness to progress to the point of seeming hopelessness – certifiable death – before he acts. This story is also a prophecy; a foretelling of what is to transpire for Jesus in the weeks to come; the Paschal Mystery: his crucifixion, death, and resurrection for our redemption.
In these two stories of redemption, there is no absence or lack of suffering; in fact, there is suffering in abundance. But there is also God’s presence – not sparing us from suffering – but revealing God’s compassion for us by restoring respiration where it is lost.
The verb respire literally means to breathe, but in its literary use it means to recover hope, courage, or strength. Whereas the verb expire technically means to exhale from the lung or expel from within. Respiring and expiring are both essential to the respiration process, but for the process to work we need to remember to breathe – that is the first commandment amid an anxiety or panic attack.
So how do we reclaim our breath when it feels as if it’s taken from us? The answer is prayer. Prayer is the spiritual practice of breathing – but more than just breathing – it is the sacred rhythm of conversation with God. To converse with God is to acknowledge God’s presence, and to acknowledge that we – unlike Mary – are not perfect companions for God. Nonetheless, to converse with God opens our hearts and minds to hearing God’s desire that we too embrace the seemingly improbable proposition that the presence of the One who creates, loves, and redeems you is always with you.
May each of us, simultaneously aware of our frailty and our belovedness before our Creator – like Mary – lean into trusting that we are beloved so that we too can converse with God who will meet us in our need and exceed our fearful expectations.
Embracing the improbable expectation may feel a bit like stepping into a valley of dry bones or standing at the entrance of grave to greet a dead man, but afterward you will find yourself revived by the grace and spirit of these encounters.
In doing this, our common prayer and converse with God becomes the sinew that knits together the bones of the body of Christ and begins the reanimation of not just our bodies but our lives as we breathe together this prayer.
Let us breathe:
Roll away the stone that is over my heart, my soul, my being! Long habits of capitulation and cowardice distance me from the love You planted into the soul of my soul when You knit me together in my mother’s womb. Awaken my slumbering heart! Help me to respond to love and the needs of others! Call me forth from my tomb of deadening anxiety, close-mindedness, limitations, and prejudices. Roll away the stone of fear, so heavy, heavy over my heart, O Holy One.[1]
Amen.
[1] Unattributed.
Foster Mays 