Finding Life in the Holy Spirit

A Sermon Prepared for the Hollywood Presbyterian Church

Rev. Stephen A. Herring

April 10, 2011

Ezekiel 37:1-10, John 11:1-44

Some days life simply stinks.  It stinks because we are bound by unbending circumstances to acknowledge that, no matter what we do, things might not go our way.  Things might just be lousy for a while.  Many of us suffer from physical conditions that might not go away any time soon.  Others have relationship problems that can’t be mended.  Some face economic stress which will not change.  Some of us work with stinkers every day.  For many of us, problems pile up, problems combine, and problems grow.  One thing we can all say from time to time is that there are moments when it stinks.  It stinks that some of us don’t get better.  It stinks that we lose people we love.  It stinks that some of our relationships can’t be healed.  It stinks that bad things happen to good people.  It stinks to be poor.  It stinks to have these problems, but we have them any way.  This condition we suffer from can be summed up by one word-concept.  That word-concept is DEATH.  I say that it can all be summed up by the word death because death describes all the fear, all the pain, all the disappointment, all the failure, all the grief and all the loss we have to go through.  Death stinks. 

There was a man who was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, from the village of Mary and Martha her sister.  It was Mary who anointed the Lord with myrrh and wiped his feet with her hair.  It was her brother Lazarus who was sick.  The sisters sent a message to Jesus saying; “Lord, the one whom you love is sick.”  When Jesus heard it he said; “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”  Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus.  When he had heard that Lazarus was sick, he remained in the place where he was two more days, then he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”  The disciples were upset because they knew that the leaders of Judea would almost certainly seek to kill Jesus and his disciples if they came back.  Even so, they went because Jesus had told them that that Lazarus had died.  Jesus arrived as the funeral observances were in full swing, after the tomb had been sealed.  Martha greeted Jesus as he arrived and said to him; “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  Even now though, we know that whatever you ask God, God will do for you.”  Jesus spoke resurrection.  He said; “Your brother will rise again.”  Martha thought that he was speaking of an abstraction in the after life, only on the other side.  She said; “I know that he will rise in the resurrection at the last day.”  But Jesus spoke of resurrection that is here and now.  Jesus said; “I AM the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me shall live even if they die, and all who live and believe in me shall never die unto eternity.”  Martha spoke faith.  She said, “YES, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God come into the world.”   Martha went and got Mary and brought her to the tomb.  When Jesus saw the grief of all those who had gathered, he was filled to the point of trembling with the power of the Spirit.  Jesus wept and approached the tomb and ordered that the stone be taken away.  He said, “Take away the stone.”  Martha said to him; “Lord, it has been four days, he stinks.”  Jesus lifted up his eyes and prayed.  He called out “Lazare, deuro exw” “Lazarus!  Come Out”   The dead man came out of the tomb.  His hands and feet were bound with the wrappings of death.  He had a grave cloth over his face.  Jesus said; “Unbind him and let him go.”     

Our circumstances are like those faced by Lazarus of Bethany.  He was sick and then he was dead.  His death caused a world of grief for those he left behind.  He was bound hand and foot, and he was sealed into a tomb with a stone.  His life stank.  When the Lord came to his tomb, four days after he had died, He said, “Take away the stone.”  Martha said to him; “Lord, it has been four days, he stinks.”  The condition of Lazarus and Martha’s words encapsulate the whole human condition.  We are bound hand and foot.  We are all covered up and wrapped up in our troubles.  We are stuck in the tombs of our circumstances. 

The only cure for this common problem is LIFE.  Jesus says, “I came that they would have life, and have it abundantly.”  (John 10:10) 

We only have life by the power of the Spirit of God.  The Spirit gives life.  (See II Corinthians 3:6)  We live because God first breathed God’s Spirit into Adam.  (See Genesis 2:7)  We are born again into eternal life because we receive the Holy Spirit.  Receiving the Holy Spirit means we come to an absolute realization that we are alive in this moment in relationship with God.  In our faith, life is not something we only grasp for a moment.  Life is the fabric of the reality in which “we live and move and have our being.”  (Acts 17:28)  In the moment we realize that we are saved, we come to possess that force of life, not as a temporary condition, but as a defining characteristic of our existence.  In Christ, we live, and our life will be ongoing and unlimited. 

It all comes from the Spirit.  In Ezekiel 37 we read that the prophet saw a vision of a valley of dry bones.  There were many of them and they were very dry.  God told the prophet to speak resurrection to these bones.  He told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and to promise that God would cause Spirit to enter them again.  Verse 9 is translated literally from the Hebrew as follows; “Prophesy to the Spirit, Prophesy, O Son of Adam.  Say to the Spirit, thus says the Lord God; Come from the four spirits O Spirit, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”  (Ezekiel 37:9)  The word “Ruach, Spirit” is used four times here in this verse.  Most translations say something like this; “Come from the four winds O breath and breathe upon these slain.”  (RSV)  The Hebrew word is “Ruach.” It means Spirit and it is used consistently in the same form, four times in this verse.  The image is that the four-fold nature of YHWH Yahweh is fused, or focused into a single, functional, concentrated Holy Spirit which contains the total power and presence of God.

Here we should make a short digression about the Holy Trinity.  Within the Trinity, each of the single aspects of God, is perfect and complete in its own right.  Each aspect of the Holy Trinity lacks nothing.  God is fully and perfectly present in Jesus and also in the Holy Spirit.  This means when we are born of the Holy Spirit we enter into complete, perfect, and absolute unity with Jesus and with God. 

When Ezekiel invoked the four fold nature of YHWH Yahweh he did so by prophesying to the four spirits.  He spoke Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit recreated those dry bones into a living host.  This is what the Holy Spirit does. 

The Holy Ghost was breathed into the nostrils of Adam so that we would become living beings.  (Genesis 2:7)  The Holy Ghost was breathed into those slain in the valley of dry bones.  (Ezekiel 37:9)  Jesus breathed the Holy Ghost into his disciples following his resurrection.  (John 20:22)  Jesus was stirred by the Spirit when he called Lazarus back from the dead.  (John 11:33) 

For us today, the gift of the Holy Spirit can breathe life into us whenever any sort of death threatens us.  The Holy Spirit can breathe life into us whenever things stink.  The Holy Spirit can breathe permanent life into us whenever we face the failing, binding, stone cold circumstances of any problem that could come along.  We can laugh at death.  We can laugh at pain, at sorrow, and at all the problems life could bring us.   Being here in this world means growing to love life within a world of imperfection.  Our task is to love it all.  Our purpose is to let ourselves become so filled with the Holy Spirit that we can breathe life into any set of problems.  We can breathe life into each other whenever we get discouraged.  So take a deep breath and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  God is opening the graves in which we have sealed ourselves.  God is going to deliver on the promise of eternal life.  Jesus is calling us to resurrection.  Amen.