Psalm 130 [1] Ezekiel 37:1-14 [2] [2]

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ who loves us and frees us from our sin, Amen. We pray for peace, for the end of war. We pray for healing. We pray for the end of pain and suffering. We pray and we pray and we pray, and nothing happens. We pray, we plead, we cry out in agony and only hear silence and see no change. We pray, and wonder why do we bother? We wonder what difference it makes. Certainly we are not the first to struggle with these questions. Nor are we the last to experience the pain that prompts their asking.

I've recently been rereading Elie Wiesel's wonderful and terrifying book entitled Night. In this memoir, Wiesel tells of his life in and his survival of Nazi concentration camps during World War II. For those of you that have never read it I encourage you to do so, for those of you that have, it warrants frequent rereading. As I have been thinking about prayer this season of Lent, I have returned to a passage in the book more than a few times. I would like to read a section of the book for you this morning.

The summer was coming to an end. The Jewish year was nearly over. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the last day of that accursed year, the whole camp was electric with the tension which was in all our hearts. In spite of everything, this day was different from any other. The last day of the year. The word "last" rang very strangely. What if it were indeed the last day? ...

At the place of assembly, surrounded by the electrified barbed wire, thousands of Jews gathered, their faces stricken...

"What are You, my God," I thought angrily, "compared to this afflicted crowd, proclaiming to You their faith, their anger, their revolt? What does Your greatness mean, Lord of the universe, in the face of all this weakness, this decomposition, and this decay? Why do You still trouble their sick minds, their crippled bodies?" ...

Bless the Eternal... The voice of the officiant had just made itself heard. I thought at first it was the wind. Blessed be the Name of the Eternal! Thousands of voice repeated the benediction; thousands of men prostrated themselves like trees before a tempest.

Blessed be the Name of the Eternal! Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day, on Sundays and feasts days?...

How could I say to Him: "Blessed are Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory? Praised be Thy Holy Name, Thou Who hast chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar?"

I heard the voice of the officiant rising up, powerful yet at the same time broken... All the earth and the Universe are God's! He kept stopping every moment, as though he did not have the strength to find the meaning beneath the words. The melody choked in his throat...

All creation bears witness to the Greatness of God! Once, New Year's Day had dominated my life...Once, I had believed profoundly that upon one solitary deed of mine, one solitary prayer, depended the salvation of the world. This day I had ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone-terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes...I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger.

In our text for today from the prophet Ezekiel we are confronted with this bizarre vision of the valley of the dry bones. It is a vision that concludes with even stranger words from God. "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely." These words of God's people in exile, are words of agony and isolation. God's people cry out that they have been cut off completely, that they have been ensnared by the power of death. Their eyes were open and they felt alone-terribly alone in a world without God and without man.

We pray, we plead, we cry out in agony and only hear silence and see no change. We pray, and wonder why do we bother? We wonder what difference it makes.

The difference is in the one to whom we pray. The difference is in the one who hears. The difference is in the one who speaks. The difference is in the one who acts. As we look again at verse 11, it is essential to see that it is God who does the explaining. The prophet speaks God's words to the people in exile. To Israel God's chosen people who have lost their land, to the people who fear they have lost their God, to the people who have lost their hope God says to the prophet Ezekiel, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.

Take note of the "they say" in this verse. It is only two short words that God speaks, but they are so critical to the resolution of the story. God hears. God hears, and then uses the words of the people. God is the one that hears the lamentation of the people in exile. God hears the cry of God's people. God hears their prayers, God hears their cries. God hears their agony and God is affected. The suffering of God's people is the suffering of God. God is moved to action.

For in verse twelve God says to Ezekiel, because I have heard the pleas of my people say to them, "I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. God is the one who hears. God is the one who speaks. Then, God is the one who acts.

"I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I will act, says the Lord." God's activity, God's work does not happen in a removed distant sort of way. This text reminds us that God's promises come to us in and through God's own self. The new life that God promises to the Israelites in exile cannot be separated from God's own spirit, God's breath which is the author of all life. Where God's spirit is, there is life.

God's promises to the Israelites through the prophet Ezekiel do not just belong to the people in exile. God's promises are for us, they are for you and me. God's promises are for those that endured and suffered in the concentration camps of WWII. God's promises are for all people at all times. The prophet reminds us once again that God hears, God speaks, and God acts. It is most certainly mysterious action. For although God works in the most unexpected ways, we trust in the promise precisely because of whom it is that makes the promise.

Our ability to trust, to have faith comes from God. There will certainly be times where we are alone, where we are alienated, where we experience no love or no mercy; but God hears our prayer, and God speaks to us words of comfort and grace through many unexpected people and in many unexpected places. Then God acts. As Christians we claim that God's definitive action, God's definitive demonstration of love has occurred in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God hears the prayers, the needs of his people, God speaks and God acts in love on the cross. A people of faith, we look for the time when that fullness of God's love is demonstrated in and through all creation. Until then we trust in the promises of God and look for God's mysterious actions.

In the forward to Wiesel's book Night, a French author and friend of Wiesel's writes of the initial days of their acquaintance and his first hearing of Wiesel's story of endurance and survival. In reflecting on that time he writes: And I, who believe that God is love, what answer could I give my young questioner...What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Jew, his brother, who may have resembled him-the crucified, who cross has conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished?...We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the eternal is the eternal, the last word belongs to him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.

Out of the pain and bitterness of Wiesel's story developed a new and wonderful friendship. Out of a new friendship came a terrifying and wonderful account of suffering and pain that the world must never forget entitled Night. This is the mysterious action of God. In the midst of our seemingly unanswered prayers, confronted by the pain of a life ended too quickly, or in the frustration of agony that lingers far too long, God is present. God is present in our embrace and in our tears. God is at work breathing new life into our tired bones longing for God's presence. God hears. God speaks and God acts. For this we give thanks, Amen.

excerpts taken from Night, by Elie Wiesel