Dream with me for a moment. Put yourself in the place as though it were real. Step with me into the place where reality and dreams are blurred. You are entering into the scary door.

The oldish man with the big beard and long hair stood just under the brow of a hill in a deserted place. There were no trees, just a rocky dull landscape. His spirit couldn’t escape the feeling that this place was isolated…it’s cold. He was alone. There was no life anywhere to be seen. He’s quite high up above sea level because the slope of the hill descends down a gradual plain toward a distant horizon. It’s just barren rock.

A squalling wind erratically enveloping him, whipping dust into his half closed eyes. It’s cold.

He walked to the top of the hill, ascending, slowly but steadily, negotiation his way through the boulders and mini-cliff faces. He reached a clearing near the top and could see into the valley on the other side.

It was a long way down. But surface of this valley looked quite different to the plain he’d just come from. It was sprinkled white and the smell of death hung in the air. He stopped still and waited. He descended, trying to make out what it was that was down there, but with the mixture of the glare and his failing eyesight, he had to get closer to see. The valley was a contrast to the other side of the hill because the further he descended the more still the air got.

And then he stopped. The realisation of what this place was paralysed him. At first disbelief flooded his eyes, it couldn’t be, no, it’s just too big a valley. But as he approached the edge of the valley’s white blanket he saw millions upon millions of human bones. Strewn about, as haphazardly as the history that brought them to this place.

There were the bones of children too. But there was order to the chaos. The bones all formed complete skeletons. They were the remains of real people, hwo had lived real lives and had really died. He couldn’t be sure who they were, but it didn’t seem like a battlefield. Not in the sense that they were all fighting with the one enemy in one battle, no, some of the bones were fresher than others.

But there were injuries inflicted upon the skeletons, the remains of battle scars could be seen etched into the bones, some smoothed by erosion, others as fresh as if they happened yesterday…could it be that this was just the history of a whole lot of people engaging in different battles over centuries, but all for the same cause?

And it was. He was looking at the history of the world. a valley of time strewn with the empty carcasses of it’s inhabitants. Time’s deceptive hospitality that always showed people out. You only visit time once, thought the man.

The eeriness of this place could not pierce the influence of the deep-set agony in his heart. This seems so wasteful. All this fighting and for what?

Is this all there is to this life? An ending?

There’s something about a skeleton that always unnerved him. It used to walk around. It was a frame that carried the body that expressed a being. These were people who loved and hated, fought and played, worked and lounged. These were people who experienced life. And these bones, little monuments that testified not to the greatness of a life once lived, but simply to the fact that life ends. Whatever greatness a person had, dissolved into egalitarianism along with their flesh. It was the ultimate humiliation.

The bones didn’t lie. You couldn’t tell who was black or white, rich or poor, famous or not. The only thing you could tell was which was male and which was female, who was brainy and who was stupid. Which was adult, which was child. Which was beautiful, which was ugly.

The skeletons retained what essential in a human. Nothing more, nothing less. But the most difficult thing of all about the skeleton was that they had no names. They were the height of anonymity because they contained nothing. They were no-one.

They were the nameless and forgotten millions of society. They had all endured the endless suffering of life, the relentless mode of painful existence. They had all fought battles not against anyone or anything but with the despair of this existence. The unfairness of it all. the powers of this world that oppress and suppress. The organisations in this world that make us into categories, numbers and target markets.

These skeletons were all that was left of a society, of a people, of an identity. And they didn’t stand for much at all. they’d been conquered by an evil empire. They had been exported so as not to revolt. They were a people who had allegedly been chosen by God to be a light for this world. they were the children of God, a people who lived according to the promise of God, and aligned themselves with a law laid out by God. They were the nation of Israel. The apple in God’s eye. The blessed.

They were people just like you and me, stuck in this world. embarking on trajectories toward the future that we have been mildly assured are the right ways to go. Faithfully embracing the mantra of our society where we need more. Constantly feeding our own needs though the poor suffer.

These people were testimony to the despair of living life…even as a person chosen by God. Suffereing and tormented. Lacking identity nationally and emotionally. Stuck in a prison hundreds of kilometres from their home land of centuries where they were encouraged to live business as usual.

We are no less displaced than they. Christians in a society that mildly tolerates us until the point we agitate them too much and then they tell us about it…like shedrach meshack and abednigo who refused to bow to the massive statue of the king and were executed, well it was attempted anyway, who were thrown into a pit of starved lions to be ripped to death.

I wonder if our faith is worn out and tired. That we may have lost or never even gained the sense of living in the power of the spirit : and by that I’m not referring to church services or amazing Christian conferences where the holy spirit is doing crazy things to people. I’m not even talking about standing in satanic nightclubs and proclaiming the gospel. These are often really wonderful things. But they are out there, and our plight is closer to home. What does it mean to live in the power of the spirit in the here and now, in our contexts of school and work, sport and socialising? Where is the power of the spirit in all that?

Is there life in this body of Christ yet? Is there anything that will revive us into life? Is there anything that will renew us? Is there anything that will cause us to become . . . and are your dreams entering into this now? Have you images of what might be in your head right now? Do you have some ideas but don’t know what to do?

The man stared at the skeletons and there was no longer fear, just an overwhelming sense of waste. A sense of loss at the possibilities that had eroded over time, that had died with the people represented. Why had God brought him here?

He was a great prophet for his nation of Israel, stuck in exile when the Babylonians had conquered them in 584 b.c.e. and he recognised now that this valley was his people. His history, both before and what would follow. It wasn’t just the past that was here, it was those from the future too.

And it hurt to see this waste.

And God said to him, “Fleshly being, you know you are one lost breath away from being one of these. Can these bones live again?”

The man shivered in fear for a moment, shying away from the voice that was addressing him, recoiling within himself, scurrying for cover to hide the shame of his sin. Crouched on the ground, hands over his face, his shoulders scrunched up, he answered because when asked a question by the almighty Lord and God, you don’t dare, no matter how much you can’t even bear the thought of speaking to him, you don’t dare to withhold your answer.

His words stumbled out, “Lord, God, you know, and I don’t.”

Then God said to him, “get up, prophesy to these bones and say to them:

O Dry bones. Hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones : I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.

I will layer muscle and skin over you and I will put breath in you. And you shall live. And you shall know that I am the Lord.”

And here is a huge question for us. Why did God get the prophet to ask this question?

He prophesied. He stood there in front of these bones and he prophesied. “And suddenly there was a noise, a rattling and the bones came together, bone to its bone.” The words from a mere mortal, but not just mere words either, the words of God himself, a proclamation of faith and hope, voiced to all of the personless, lifeless skeletons and they obeyed.

And the uncreation, the stench of death, the terminal grip we know it to have was suspended in that dream. Hope sprung forth from the motion of millions of bones re-connecting, rediscovering it’s identity and purpose not only in it’s unique context of an individual human being, but also in the collective context of millions of people experiencing this renewal. Body after body becoming complete. He saw it with his own eyes. Flesh ex nihilo, flesh out of nothing, strapping itself on to the carcasses.

And after the all the commotion, after all the miracle, after all the creation, after all the undoing of death, the bodies emerged, complete, perfect, naked and innocent. Fresh with the power of God, formed and fashioned with his word that was announced, the proclamation of hope in things to come.

And the place was still once more. There was silence. There was quiet. There was nothing, not one of these bodies lived.

But God I thought that was enough? I thought it was enough to speak your command and your will be done? I thought you said you’d put the breath in them too? What’s up with that?

I thought I could say my piece and that be that?

It’s weird. Why did God stop there?

These lifeless bodies, semblances of human beings, looking like God inspired creations, right down to the texture of their skin, stuck in a terminal wait. Decomposing before they even begin. Lifeless corpses. Not even knowing. Stuck, no future except disintegration.

There’s no identity in death, just what was or what might have been. There’s no corporate identity there either, save for participating in tragedy. They were just a bunch of tragic cadavers, hopelessly brought back to … to… well, it’s not life. This wasn’t a revival, this was a neat trick.

It was spectacular, but it was more harrowing than skeletons. Because when you see a face, you see dreams. When you see someone in the flesh, you are confronted with their being. And all these people were confronting the man with their existence that was greater than simply being skeletal, it was existing as a person…almost.

And Ezekiel despaired at this. “God?”

And God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the breath, yeah, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath : Thus says the Lord God : Come from the four winds, o breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.”

And the man thought back to when God formed Adam out of the ground back in Genesis 2:7. He made him out of the clay, moulded him in God’s image. And then breathed life into him. Animated him, created life ex nihilo, life out of nothing. And he breathed into Adam and Adam lived. And loved.

And Ezekiel stood there, the words of God upon his mouth, the instructions to go out to the unseen winds, the breath of the lord, the life giving breath of God, these words, the same words that were perhaps uttered or at least on the mind of the creator when he was forming Adam, these words were now on a mere mortals lips at the authority of God.

And Ezekiel was now about to participate in the breathing of life into his people. He was carrying the words of the Spirit, words with power to heal and raise from the dead, these words were coming from his lips. And he ventured forth, thankful to be in a dream, for to do this for real would be too terrifying, to insane, to disturbing. And he proclaimed to the wind and the breath of life came and swept over the bodies and they lived. They stood.

A multitude of testimony to the power of God. To the breath of God. To the wonder of God. To the love of God.

And God promised for Ezekiel that he would do the same in his wake time. And that promise stood he test of time.

So fast forward to Jesus. If we were following the time line from easter, which is a little bit arbitrary, but hey, and we found ourselves about 2 weeks after the resurrection then we would probably be at this story from John 20.

It’s a little story and it contains the curious phrase in it. Let’s read the verse:

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he BREATHED on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20:21-23

There are a couple of things that I would like us to reflect on here, because in this story lies the responsibility of Christians in this world.

There is a massive change here in what is going on in world history, specifically in what we can call redemptive history. And we often miss it out in our language and the way we talk amongst ourselves. But what is being said here is radical. It’s not small. It’s the birth of the body of Christ that you and I are part of.

And in the body of Christ that has been birthed here, comes a whole raft of similar responsibilities to Jesus.

For a start Jesus says “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” This doesn’t seem to be about authority as such, rather it is about the similarity of Calling that the body of Christ is meant to have.

As a collective group of people, are we meant to be wealthy? Are we accountable to each other as to how we spend our wealth? Ought we be?

Secondly, When Jesus breathed on them and said to them “Receive the holy spirit” he basically created ex nihilo, created the body of Christ out of nothing. It was a new beginning. And in that, came authority that was originally only given to God : the ability to forgive sins.

These are staggering transitions and we forget them. What would it look like for us to provide forgiveness for sins in our communities?

They’d look at us like we’re having a laugh. But the point still remains, that we are called to cry out the proclamation of the gift of breath into the dead skeletons of society and the dead corpses of the church to bring about life in the spirit. It is not optional.

And so I invite us all to take stock of this fact. that we hold in our hands the greatest story ever told. If you feel you need the breath of God tonight, let’s pray for that. If you feel you need to consider how you will be the body of Christ : which is powerful and also powerless, which touches the leper, which embraces the outcast, which dignifies the weak and lonely. Which suffers cruelly with them, shares in their grief, prays for, provides healing for. Will we take this seriously? The call to be Jesus in this world?

Will we lay claim to proclaiming yes, through word and deed, the power of the risen Jesus? Will we be emboldened by our faith, not against other faiths and belief systems, will we be emboldened to speak for Jesus? For this is our role. This is our existence. This is Christian….