MORTAL, CAN THESE BONES LIVE?

This reflection will first be one of lament, and then of hope. We know that an important part of being an adult is recognizing things in life that we don’t want to do, but we still gotta do them for the sake of others and ourselves. But a less-discussed part of adulthood is the reverse: There are things in life that we have to do, but we don’t have to like them. We’re aware that they’re necessary for others and ourselves, but we should also be honest if we find them difficult, stressful, disorienting, disappointing or even feel like they go against our basic humanity. I want to name physical distancing as one of those things. We all have to do it right now, but we don’t have to like it. And I wonder if this is especially true for those with weaker immune systems and others most at-risk, those whose conditions already required forms of physical distancing even before anyone had heard the term “coronavirus.”

I encountered several folks for whom this is the case last summer, when I took an intensive hospital chaplaincy training course. During that time, I heard many long-term care residents lament the isolation and loss of agency brought on by their need to live in the facility. It challenged their own sense of humanity, filling them with grief, anxiety and frustration. They intimately knew that physical distancing is not the norm of human existence, knew that the norm of human existence is gathering and connecting, among families and friends, in groups large and small, around shared interests and tasks. They reminded me how much we all long to contribute to the beautiful tapestry of a diverse human society and have friends and loved ones we can rely on for regular conversation. They reminded me that our humanity is fulfilled when another person knows what we’re thinking and feeling, how we’re experiencing the world, and when we know what they’re experiencing too. To express that even in simple conversation, to live outside of ourselves, is the norm of human existence.

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The prophet Ezekiel also had a vision of the norm of human existence. In fact, one of the ways we can describe the role of a prophet is that they name the difference between the norm or the ideal on the one hand, and the mess or corruption or crisis that they’re experiencing at the time on the other. And the only way that they can name this difference is because God blesses (or curses) them with a vision of the ideal, which they then contrast with their current reality.

In Ezekiel’s case, this literally happened through visions. The Valley of the Dry Bones is probably the most well-known, most evocative, visceral, and palpable of these visions, which is saying something since his entire book is worthy of the best Hollywood special-effects houses. The Dry Bones vision likely served as an inspiration for the “zombie apocalypse” genre that emerged in the 19th and 20th-centuries, although those stories fall far short of what Ezekiel is communicating here. Yes, the vision starts out grotesque and horrific, a manifestation of our fears and anxieties, a bit like a zombie b-movie. But Ezekiel ends with an expression of our greatest hopes and desires, a fulfillment of everything we living human beings are meant to be.

Lights. Camera. Action. A wide valley with bones scattered all over. They’re dried out, so parched by wind and time that the memory of life is completely gone. And they aren’t even complete skeletons resembling real human bodies: there’s no way to know where this tibia came from, or who that collarbone belonged to. They’re all isolated from each other and from their stories, an indistinct mass of unhumanity. It’s a stark image of death, and loss.

It’s such a stark image because bones normally come up in Israel’s Scriptures as recognizable parts of a real person, someone whom God has given the gift of life. This gift of life is imagined as a breath that God breathes into the first human’s lifeless body, which God had already “formed…from the dust of the ground.” (Genesis 2:7) Then when this first human sees the second human, he exclaims that she is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” (Gen 2:23) God has responded to the problem He himself names, that “it is not good for the man to be alone.” (Gen 2:18) Bone and flesh here reveal our common humanity, affirm the intimate bond we all share as the norm of our existence. Later in the narrative, the Israelites will affirm this intimate bond on a national scale by appealing to their past: The Exodus story records that “Moses took with him the bones of Joseph” to the Promised Land and buried him there. (Exodus 13:19) Much closer to Ezekiel’s time, a corpse gets dumped onto Elisha’s own dead body, touches the prophet’s bones and the person is raised to new life! (2 Kings 13:21)

The dry scattering of bones reflects a longing for all these elements to repeat themselves, a beckoning that gets voiced when God asks the Prophet, “can these bones live?” Ezekiel’s response is an appeal for God to continue the story He began with Creation and continued with Israel’s election and Exodus, but now, in the Babylonian exile, seems as dead as Elisha and the body that encountered him. So, God starts with re-creation: the isolated, individual bones clatter together into recognizable skeletons. And then flesh: Muscle, sinew, skin, comes back up from the dust of the ground and covers the skeletons, forming recognizable human bodies, real lives, real stories, but still isolated in death. The real miracle is what happens next: yet again, the breath of God flows through these bodies, and they come alive! More than that, they stand up, together, “a vast multitude.” An army, not of the undead, but of the newly alive!

God goes on to explain the immediate meaning of the vision. He is going to restore the “House of Israel,” return the people to their homeland, those who have been “cut off” from that land and isolated from each other through conquests and exiles in Assyria, Persia and Babylon. But this only sort of happens in the following centuries. The exiles will return, but under Greek and Roman occupation they’ll continue to experience displacement and death. By the time Martha is mourning her brother Lazarus, Ezekiel’s vision has come to depict universal realities. Israel’s enemies are not merely Babylonians or Romans, but the dehumanizing power of evil and death. And while 1st-century Jews hope that their salvation comes about through the military victory of David’s Anointed heir, that is only a means to an end. That real End is the resurrection of the righteous dead and the restoration of all God’s people united under a rebuilt Temple and an eternal Davidic reign.

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At its best, this 1st-century Jewish hope for restored unity is a hope for restored community, restored relationships, restored bonds of intimacy. If these bonds of intimacy are essential to being human, then Ezekiel shows us a vision of restored humanity. The primary question is how God brings this about, and through whom. The uniquely Christian answer centres on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and there are lots of aspects to this correct “Sunday school answer.” Within that, the part I’m focusing on is about time: when can this come about, when can we experience this restored human unity? Because, as I lamented above, a lot of folks are suddenly feeling disrupted and disconnected, and there’s no knowing how long this physical distancing will last.

Our Gospel story brings us to a time in Jesus’ life when He and Martha are separated from Lazarus through death. Jesus and Martha begin with lament: Lazarus’ death is real, and their feelings of isolation are real. That shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept,” is one of the most important: God Himself knows what loss and isolation feel like. Martha then turns to theology: is she deflecting her grief or seeking comfort? Either way, she knows how to interpret Ezekiel correctly, knows what’ll happen to her brother’s dry bones. She tells Jesus flatly, “he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” and she believes that Jesus Son of David is somehow important to that happening.

But Jesus’ response both upends and fulfills everything Martha has been taught to believe. He doesn’t say, “yes, I’ll bring this about one day in some distant future.” He proclaims, “’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.’” As the Holy Spirit draws us into the life of Christ, God fulfills the promise of Ezekiel’s vision right here, right there, right now:

He fulfills the promise of His peoples’ homeland in the midst of their exile;

He fulfills the promise of Easter Resurrection in the midst of our Lenten death;

And offers us the hope of family and community even in the midst of coronavirus.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Even as we endure suffering, death, isolation, anxiety and physical distancing, Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life right now. As the complete human being, He is the restoration of the human family, the intimate bonds of friendship and society right now, right where you and I may be reading this.

You see, the resurrection has not been cancelled…because the resurrection already happened.

There’s nothing we need to do to achieve it.

There’s nothing that the powers of death and division can do to stop it.

It can’t be cancelled. It already happened. And its liberating power is offered to you and me, right here, right there, right now,

But what concretely is on offer, in this “now” of the resurrection? Nothing less than the freedom to do our best to remain fully human, even in this time of plague and physical distancing. The freedom to respond to these circumstances as gently to ourselves and to others as we need. I’ll conclude with some practical thoughts that come to mind.

• We all relate to time differently: we all need to plan and be aware, but some feel better with the long-term in view, while others can only handle the next week or the next day at a time. Not to deny how long this might be, but to be aware and gentle with yourself as well.

• Despite the physical distance, we have creative technologies that help us maintain our bonds with people in both new and old ways. Be it phone calls, social media, video chats or other means: if you’re lonely, please reach out. And if you feel you want to unplug from all the busyness and news updates and expectations of others to connect, you are free to do that too. Again, not to deny reality, but to be aware and gentle with yourself.

• Lastly, Christ’s victory still makes room for lament. If you’re struggling, name that distress. These technologies are powerful, but still limited. And let’s remember that the norm of human existence is to be physically together and not apart. When this becomes possible again, I hope we may find new life and freedom as a community and as a society, find a new appreciation for the gift of sharing each others’ spaces as we share each others’ lives, and share the Body and Blood of Christ’s risen life.

By being aware of ourselves and gentle with ourselves, we can receive Christ’s gracious and loving rule, His victory over death, and His resurrection life here and now. Through Him, our humanity is restored. Through Him, these dry bones can live.

Thanks be to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen