Fifth Sunday in Lent
Year A
RCL
From the Valley of Dry Bones to the Open Grave
By +Brian Ernest Brown, CWC
There is a specific kind of grief that feels entirely final. It is the moment when a door slams shut, a relationship completely shatters, a medical report comes back with zero options, or a loved one passes away. In those moments, our human instinct is to close the book. We say, “It is over. There is nothing left to do. The story is finished.”
We tend to resign ourselves to the cemetery of our circumstances, wrapping our hope in grave clothes and walking away.
Our readings today place us squarely in the middle of places that look absolutely, definitively dead. They take us to the very edge of the human limit and ask us a terrifyingly beautiful question: Do we believe that God has the final word?
In our first reading, the prophet Ezekiel is carried by the Spirit into a valley that is full of bones. And the text notes a devastating detail: they were very dry. These are not fresh graves; these are the remnants of a hope that died a very long time ago. The house of Israel is crying out, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.”
And God looks at Ezekiel and asks a question that hangs over every difficult situation in our lives: “Mortal, can these bones live?”
From a human standpoint, the answer is an obvious no. Dust cannot breathe. But Ezekiel gives a brilliant answer of faith: “O Lord God, you know.” God then commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, and as he speaks, a rattling sound echoes through the valley. Bones attach to bones, sinews and flesh cover them, and the breath enters them. They stand up as a vast multitude. God looks at His grieving, exiled people and promises, “I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.”
This grand, cosmic promise of the valley of dry bones becomes intimately personal in the Gospel of John. We find ourselves in the small town of Bethany, outside the home of Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus. Lazarus is desperately sick, and the sisters send an urgent message to Jesus: “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
They expect Jesus to rush to their aid. They expect an immediate rescue. But Jesus delays. He stays two days longer in the place where He was, and by the time He finally arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead in the tomb for four days.
Four days is a highly significant detail. In the Jewish tradition of that time, it was believed that the soul hovered near the body for three days, hoping to re-enter it. But by the fourth day, decay had begun. The situation was considered completely, irreversibly over.
When Martha meets Jesus on the road, her heart is broken. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It is a classic human reaction. We look at our life’s disappointments and say, “God, if you had just shown up when I asked, this marriage wouldn’t have ended. If you had answered that prayer, I wouldn’t have lost that job. You were too late.”
Jesus does not give Martha a cold theological lecture. He looks at her grief, and then He goes to the tomb and encounters Mary weeping. And right there, standing before the dark cave of death, we find the shortest and perhaps most profound verse in the New Testament:
“Jesus wept.”
The God of the universe does not stand detached from your pain. He does not judge you for crying or tell you to cheer up because He is about to fix it. He steps into the mud of your sorrow and weeps with you. He takes your grief entirely seriously.
But Jesus does not stay in the weeping. He gets deeply moved again and walks right up to the stone. He issues a shocking command: “Take away the stone.”
Martha, ever the practical one, panics. She says, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” She wants to protect herself and everyone else from the raw, ugly reality of decay. She wants to keep the grave closed because dealing with death is neat, but dealing with decomposition is messy.
Jesus ignores the objection. He looks into the dark cave and cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
And the dead man walks out. His hands and feet are still bound with strips of cloth, and his face is wrapped in a cloth. Jesus looks at the stunned crowd and gives them a job: “Unbind him, and let him go.”
How do we experience this resurrection power on an ordinary week when we feel buried by life?
Paul gives us the internal blueprint in his letter to the Romans. He makes a distinction between a mind that is focused entirely on our immediate, earthly limitations and a mind that is alive in the Spirit. He writes:
“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
If you spend your week focusing only on your dry bones, your limitations, your fears, and your closed graves, you will remain trapped in a spiritual tomb. But Paul reminds us that the exact same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells inside of you right now. You carry the breath of God in your lungs. Your current situation is not the baseline of your reality.
This week, as we stand on the absolute threshold of Holy Week, Jesus is walking up to the closed, heavy stones in your life.
The Psalmist captured the cry of our hearts in Psalm 130 when he sang:
“Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice! … My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning.”
Where are you sitting in the depths today? What is the grave you have given up on? Is it a dream you buried years ago, a habit or addiction you assume will always control you, or a relationship you have declared completely dead and dry?
Hear Jesus shouting into your quiet, dark spaces today: Come out.
He is calling you out of the tomb of your shame, out of the cave of your isolation, and out of the paralysis of your fear. Do not let the stench of past failures keep you from rolling away the stone. Step into the light of His grace, let Him unbind the grave clothes that have been keeping you stuck, and walk forward as a person who knows that our God is a God of resurrection, from this time forth and forevermore.
Amen.