Homily For The Fourth Sunday after Easter (Easter IV) 2025
On this fourth Sunday in Easter, I want us to consider the Old Testament lesson from Ezekiel. Our Old Testament Lesson is part of a final third of the book where God reveals his future blessings on his restored people. He promises to gather them, to provide a shepherd and king for them and to make a covenant with them. Indeed, God will provide for them, protect them, give them new hearts - exchanging hearts of stone for that of flesh, meaning hearts which are eager to obey the Lord. The Lord will place his Spirit within them, bringing about a work of resurrection.
For context, Judah is in exile. Ezekiel is prophesying to God’s people while they are in Babylon suffering for the nation’s covenant disobedience. They are diminished in number, they are far from home and there doesn’t appear to be any hope.
So in Chapter 37, our Old Testament lesson for today, we read that the Holy Spirit led Ezekiel out to see a valley full of bones. Most likely the site of a great battle. Ezekiel is careful to comment that the bones were very dry, thus very far removed from the vitality of life.
After showing Ezekiel this valley full of very dry bones, God asks the question, “Son of man, can these bones live?” He uses the title “Son of Man” - a term that Jesus loved to use to describe himself in the Gospels. The term Son of Man refers to the fullness of one’s humanity. God is emphasizing Ezekiel’s status as a creature when he asks, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel gives the answer that honors God as the creator, the all powerful, the omniscient one when he says, “O Lord, You know!” He also acknowledges the frailty of men, the limit of man’s knowledge and the multitude of our experiences that tell us, “No, dry bones of dead men do not live again.”
In one of the earliest poems of the Old Testament, God declares that he is the Lord of life and death. We read in Deuteronomy 32:29, “See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no-one can deliver out of my hand.” Surely, Ezekiel could remember the restoration of life through the prayers of Elijah and Elisha; perhaps, he could call to mind the corpse who came to life when it came in contact with Elisha’s bones in that tomb. So, Ezekiel had context for believing that God could do it because he had declared his power to Israel and there was proof that He had done so in the past. Ezekiel’s answer is understandably cautious. ‘He had the knowledge not to deny God’s ability, but he lacked the faith, he struggled to believe in it.’ So he bounces the question back to God himself.
He says “Lord, only you know.”
Then the Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones - to hear the word of God. God is commanding Ezekiel to preach to the dead to obey the voice of their Creator - the one who created you from the dry dust of the earth. The Word of the Lord then commanded the bones to be covered with sinews and flesh, skin and the breath of life. We read that Ezekiel did as commanded - he was the human voice, the voice of the Son of Man, repeating the word of God to the deadness of that valley of the driest of bones. Nothing else was necessary. We read that Ezekiel heard a tremendous rattling, and shaking as the bones were reconnected, covered with flesh and sinew, yet one thing was lacking. This great army of men had all the indications of life except that absolutely essential - breath of life, that gift of animating power that only God can give, for it is the source of all life, harkening back to the first mention of the breath of God in Genesis 2:9. Where man was formed from the dust of the earth but God had to breathe life into man for him to live and move.
Once again, the Lord had to give the power of the breath of life to Ezekiel. He had to receive power from God, through the Holy Spirit, to speak new life unto that which lacked it - to that which would only yield to its creator. The Lord commands Ezekiel to call for the four winds to breathe new life into the bodies of the slain. Ezekiel did so and he saw an exceeding great army, animated by new life given by the breath of life. A huge army.
Our Lord then explains the meaning of this vision. These bones represent the house of Israel - the descendants of Jacob who believe that their best days are behind them. They believe that they are used up, spent. Israel believes all hope is lost because they are divided, cut off from their parts. They say, in essence, “We have been scattered to the four winds - dispersed to the four corners. Our disobedience led to our death, our dismemberment, what God hath put asunder what man can join back together?” (Look at the vows what God hath joined let no man put asunder]
The Lord instructs Ezekiel again to prophesy to the bones who have no hope beyond the grave. He says that the Lord will open the grave and cause them to come out of the graves and then bring the exiles back to the land of Israel.
As a result, these people will glorify God because they will know that it was God who gave them life. They will know the Lord - They will know the Lord. Moreover, the Lord promises to place His Spirit within them. He will bear witness to their new life, their new inheritance in the land that the Lord has given them.
There is considerable debate among scholars about the purpose of this passage. Modern scholarship believes that it simply is about the exiles being brought back into Canaan - to inhabit Jerusalem again. They believed that people in this era didn’t conceive of the resurrection of the dead. On the other hand, the Church Fathers routinely viewed this passage as speaking primarily of the resurrection of the dead, the role of the Holy Spirit in making the soul alive again unto God. In some sense it is both, for the Gospels readily acknowledge God’s fulfillment in bringing back a remnant to Canaan with Jerusalem, an inhabited city. The Jews came back from exile and were anticipating the Messiah. It would appear on that Good Friday that the disciples had been separated from our Lord. His bones resting in grave; their souls in anguish giving voice to the dejection and pain of the exiles in Ezekiel - saying that they too had been cut off, that they too had the hope of the Messiah is good as dead.
Yet, upon Christ’s resurrection, we have what is considered the most significant echo of Ezekiel 37 where Jesus comes into the locked upper room on the evening after His resurrection. There we read, “He breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.” “The Lord of life himself, freshly risen to his feet from where he had lain among the bones of the dead, adopts simultaneously the posture of Ezekiel in summoning the breath of God, and the posture of God himself in commanding the breath of the Spirit to come upon the disciples.” Jesus tells us there of the spirit of truth, reproving the world of sin and righteousness, the one who will guide them into all truth. They received the first installment, as it were, of the Holy Spirit who would be poured out on Jews from the four corners of the world at Pentecost. Christ was to go away, as he said in our Gospel for today, so that the fullness of the Holy Spirit may come to the Church.
Jesus promised the Apostles that they would be his witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea and the uttermost parts of the world. So the restoration of Israel through Jesus was just the beginning of the greater work of God in the redemption of mankind. The same resurrection power promised in Ezekiel and received by the Apostles is at work bringing life and salvation to the uttermost part of the world. This same Holy Spirit guides people into truth, convicts the world of sin and directs people to Jesus Christ for salvation. He brings hope of life eternal, the bodily resurrection to all who trust in Jesus Christ the Messiah. Truly, as Jesus says in our Gospel, it is expedient, it is better for the Apostles and for us that Jesus ascended. For in doing so, the Holy Spirit, who was the special gift to prophets, kings and artisans is now the common inheritance for us. The Holy Spirit whose presence was known in the pillar and the cloud in the Wilderness as an external presence to Israel, is now the internal inheritance of every Christian.
So, God is not making requirements of us to walk in newness of life without giving us the means to be obedient. The Holy Spirit’s presence is presupposed in the commandments we receive in St. Paul’s instruction. We are to cast away spiritual wickedness and instead receive with meekness the engrafted word. The prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah spoke of hearts of flesh, those with the law written upon them replacing hearts hardened by sin and rebellion. The Psalmist says, “Thou Lord desirest truth in the inward parts.” The Holy Spirit writes the laws of God upon our heart and then makes our hearts and wills desirous of good things. The Holy Spirit softens the heart, he makes us aware of the demands of God’s holiness upon us personally. Calling us to have integrity of faith - where the intentions of our hearts match godly obedience displayed to the world at large.
Let us take care, beloved that we are not merely whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones. Integrity, belief, trust through the Holy Spirit leads to the complete conversion of a person so that they cross the finish line of this life and are able to enter into the hour of death in faith and trust in Jesus. The engrafted word, by way of the Holy Spirit, will save the soul.
Souls made alive unto God - Ezekiel pictures it vividly in the vision of the dry bones. It is God’s work. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, the promised Comforter. Ezekiel and the Apostles anticipated the Spirit’s work in Israel and in their own hearts. We will celebrate the fullness of the Spirit’s presence at Pentecost or Whitsunday here in a few weeks, but we can also celebrate this gift to the Church today because the Holy Spirit is available to all who will believe and operative in the lives of believers now.
St. Paul instructs us to not grieve the Holy Spirit - that is, we should avoid engaging in thoughts and actions that are contrary to the express will of God, those things known plainly in the Scriptures. There are sins of which we are ignorant, for which we pray with the Psalmist, “forgive me for my hidden sins” but sins of open disobedience are another, and we need to take care to repent of those. Whether it is bitterness, envy, evil thoughts about others, let us cast it aside. Is it love for money? Put it away. Is it love of the adulation of others? Put it away. Is it sins of the flesh? Let us repent fully. Let us welcome the Holy Spirit, let our hearts be ready homes for His work in our lives. Let the word of God ingrafted be obeyed in the innermost parts of ourselves so that it may bear fruit through the Holy Spirit unto everlasting life. Amen.