The Spirit is Life and Peace

“To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”  There is no better phrase in the New Testament than this from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans about what it means for us during this Lenten season.  Our life in God’s Spirit is about continuing the ministry Christ’s mission of healing and bringing peace to our troubled world.

Our reading this morning from the prophet Ezekiel is about a vision.  He probably had this vision while in captivity in Babylon around the year 598 BCE.  Ezekiel’s vision was followed by an interpretation.

The scene shows the prophet in the desert, an arid place.  The dry bones were lifeless.  Following the Babylonian exile there was no hope for restoring the kingdom of Israel.  But the Lord spoke to Ezekiel and said to him, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”  Most of us know the old spiritual song about the dry bones:

Ezekiel connected them dry bones,

Ezekiel connected them dry bones,

Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones,

Now hear the word of the Lord.

Then the Lord God said to these bones: “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord."

There is a message of hope in hearing the word of the Lord.  God will renew his covenant with Israel, but it will be a spiritual renewal rather than a literal one.  “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 will act.”

Life in the Spirit of God is about the work of God throughout our human history.  In our world today, and in the Church through the ministry of all who are baptized,  it is through the Spirit that we are led into a life of justice, peace and compassion for all people. 

The story in the Gospel of John about the raising of Lazarus is a later account of the work of God’s spirit.  Lazarus lived with his family in Bethany.  He was the brother of Martha and Mary.  He was ill so his sisters sent word to Jesus about his friend.  The message said, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”  When Jesus received this news he said, “This illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

We can imagine that John in writing about Lazarus saw it as a premonition about Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead.  Fred Craddock, professor of preaching and New Testament at Candler School of Theology, says the primary function of the story about Lazarus is revelation.  “Some truth about the meaning of God’s glory and presence in the world is made known through Jesus’ ministry.  For the stories to function this way, they must be seen to operate on two levels. On one level Jesus heals a cripple, opens the eyes of the blind or raises the dead, but on another level he reveals a truth about life eternal which God makes available in Jesus Christ.”

“What is really going on here is not only a family crisis in Bethany but the crisis of the world, not only the raising of a dead man but the giving of life to the world.  On one level the story is about the death and resurrection of Lazarus, but on another it is about the death and resurrection of Jesus. The sisters want their brother back, to be sure, but Jesus is also acting to give life to the world.. Jesus declares this truth to Martha at the heart of the narrative: "I am the resurrection and the life."

In an article in the current issue of the Christian Century, Stephanie Jaeger writes, the raising of Lazarus “reveals God’s power to overcome death and renew life.  God calls us out of metaphorical tombs in which we are buried: addiction, hopelessness, guilt, depression, loss, pain.  God offers us a new beginning.

“…God also calls us out of the tangible tombs of entrenched poverty, poor education, and limited opportunity.”  In the Lazarus story, “Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.  Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’"

When Lazarus emerged from the tomb he was still bound with strips of cloth.  He was alive but he was not completely free.  It took his family and friends to unbind him and to let him go.  The point here is not only God’s power to renew life but it is our power to participate in the unbinding of all people who are oppressed, abused, or in any way victims of discrimination.

Stephanie Jaeger gets to the meaning of this story, “When I hear that God has the power to bring Lazarus back to life, …[and] to breathe life into skeletons in the desert, I know that God has the power to breathe life into our urban deserts.”  We are to “cooperate with God and do our part to unbind our cities and those who live in them from the bonds of poverty.”

To enjoy true life and peace is to set our minds on the Spirit knowing that God’s Spirit “dwells in us.”  It is our Lenten discipline to reflect on this as we come together to read and meditate on God’s holy Word.  Through our worship we grow in the knowledge of God and in the meaning of Christ’s resurrection for us.  It is about new life, restoring and renewing our dry bones by breathing life into our urban deserts.  It is what we do to alleviate poverty, to understand and respect people who are different from ourselves, to build communities of equality and opportunity, and to rejoice in knowing that God resuscitates us through his Spirit in this life and in the eternal life to come.  Amen.