“I
Will Open Your Graves”
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen. What has been the saddest moment in your life? For me, it was my
father’s funeral 25 years ago, and mother’s funeral a few weeks ago. There
is nothing more painful than standing before an open coffin, looking upon the
lifeless body of a loved one; the coffin closed; the body lowered into the
grave. Our text is today’s Old Testament Reading from the 37th chapter of
Ezekiel. The Lord promises, “I will open your graves and bring you up from
them.” Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones is one of the most unusual
pictures in the Bible. In the ancient world when a major military battle
was fought in a valley or a plain, the victors sometimes left the bodies of the
defeated there in the open, unburied, as a horrible memorial to the battle, and
a lasting warning to other enemies. Ezekiel’s vision is of a desert valley
like that: eerie, desolate, scattered with the dry bones of decayed bodies.
“Son of man,” the Lord asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” For the people in Ezekiel’s time the dry bones in the vision were a
symbol, representing their destroyed and defeated nation. Ezekiel wrote
his book in Babylon after ancient Israel was conquered by the Babylonians and he
was taken captive to Babylon with many of his fellow conquered countrymen. The
vision of dry bones coming back to life was a comforting promise from the Lord
to those captives in exile that he would resurrect and restore their dead and
destroyed nation. “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel’s vision is also
meant as a comforting promise from the Lord for us, the promise of resurrection
and eternal life for our dead and destroyed bodies. Like the ancient
nation of Israel, defeated in battle, the Lord promises us, “I will open your
graves and bring you up from them.” When we lower a loved one into the grave, when we face death ourselves,
we feel as though we are suffering the ultimate defeat. That’s how the
disciples felt as they saw the body of their beloved Jesus placed in the tomb
and the stone rolled into place. “I will open your graves and bring you up from them.” St. Paul
writes in 1st Thessalonians, “We would not have you be ignorant, brothers, about
those who fall asleep, or to grieve in the same manner as the rest of men, who
have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe
that God will raise with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” Although on Good Friday Christ’s death looked like a horrible defeat,
the victory came on Easter morn. In the same way, your death and the death
of your loved ones asleep in Jesus is not a defeat; the victory will come at the
Last Day. As St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “But Christ has been raised
from the dead, the first to rise of those who have fallen asleep. . .
Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” When you fall asleep in Jesus, your spirit leaves your body and goes
immediately to be with Jesus in the bliss of heaven. As Jesus said to the
thief who came to faith while hanging on a cross beside him, “Today you will be
with me in paradise.” Here on earth, your lifeless body will decay. Perhaps it will be
cremated. Perhaps like those passengers on the airline that disappeared
and is probably at the bottom of the ocean your body will somehow be destroyed
and never recovered. Perhaps parts of your body will be donated to help
others. No matter how it happens, like the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision,
your body in its present form will pass away. “Son of man, can these bones
live?” The great Easter hymn “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” is based on a
verse from the book of Job: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end
he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in
my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not
another.” “Son of man, can these bones live?” “This is what the Lord God
says to these bones: ‘I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.
I will attach ten—s to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with
skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life!’” At the Last Day your body, even though it is decayed and destroyed,
even though it may be scattered, will be raised, restored, revived, reassembled,
resurrected. “And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will
see God.” The same body you have now will be restored to you: “I myself
will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another.” But your resurrected body will be changed, transformed, into a perfect,
glorious, heavenly body. As St. Paul says in Philippians, “The Lord Jesus
Christ . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his
glorious body.” That means no longer will your body bear any sign of the
struggles and sorrows of this world. No more weakness, no more sickness,
no more infirmity, no more deformity, no more injury, no more defects, no more
frailties of any kind. St. Paul puts it this way in 1st Corinthians: “We will all be changed,
in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised never to die again, and we will
be changed. For that which dies must clothe itself with that which cannot
die, and the mortal with immortality. . . Then the saying that is written will
come true, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’” “We believe that God will raise with Jesus those who have fallen asleep
in him.” Just as Christ rose from his tomb on the third day, on the Last
Day your body will rise from its grave. As Jesus says, “I tell you the
truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and
will not be condemned. . . a time is coming and has now come when the dead
will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. . .
all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.” “Son of man, can these bones live?” A time is coming when like
Lazarus in today’s Gospel Reading you will hear his voice and come out of your
grave. For, the grave is only a temporary home for your body. As St.
Paul says in today’s Epistle Reading, “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies.” Just as the body of our Lord
Jesus himself only rested in the tomb for three days from Good Friday to Easter
Sunday, “a time is coming . . . when . . . all who are in their graves
will hear his voice and come out.” At the resurrection on the Last Day, [in that country cemetery in
Kansas] [in our cemetery here at Trinity, and my home congregation’s cemetery
near Canton, Kansas] where my father and mother are buried, and all around the
globe, the vision that Ezekiel saw will come true: “There was a noise, a
rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and
ten—s and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them.” Your body, raised, restored, revived, reassembled, resurrected, will be
reunited with your soul for all eternity, as Ezekiel also saw in his vision:
“But there was no breath in them. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Prophesy to the
breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Lord God says:
Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may
live.”’ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them, and
they came to life.” “Son of man, can these bones live?” “This is what the Lord God
says, ‘O my people, I will open your graves and bring you up from them.”
“And so,” St. Paul says in 1st Thessalonians, “we shall be forever with the
Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” Jesus promises, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever
believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live. . . For my Father’s will
is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the Last Day.” He lives, and you shall
conquer death. “O my people, I will open your graves and bring you up from them.” Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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