“I have promised and I will do it,” says the Lord (Ezekiel 37:14). What has he promised and what
has he by now done? A restoration of the people Israel under the figure of the resurrection of
the dead; that is what he has accomplished. But the vision of the dry bones is not really about
the dead coming back to life — sinews put back, flesh restored, bones coming together, bone
joining bone. The vision of Ezekiel is about the Jews back in their homeland starting fresh. “See,
I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life and know that I am the Lord” (5-6).
The story of Lazarus in John’s gospel is a story about the resuscitation of a dead man. But is it?
“Lazarus, come out.” Come out of what?
The stench of the sepulchre, the progress toward dust already begun? Not really, although
there is no reason to deny that wonder in Jesus’s career. St. John is interested in a wonder
greater still. “Whoever believes in me will never die” (11-26); so, “untie him and let him go
free,” is a word of freedom from many things beside the grave clothes of burial custom. It too is
a release from human bondage like that of Ezekiel’s many bones on the surface of the plane.
John never means as little as he says, even when the little is a marvel in a world where death
and the grave take a universal tool.
“Those who are in the flash cannot please God,” we hear from Paul (Romans 8:8). “But you are
not in the flesh; you are in the spirit, since the spirit of God dwells in you” (v. 9). Now we’re
getting down to cases. All three readings from the scriptures mean one thing, that the Lord is
not a God of dead souls, a people in bondage but of a living, act of humanity that lives for him.
They are Lenten readings, of course; hence the immediate reference is to baptism. The Holy
Spirit that energizes the baptismal bath is the sign of power of the new age. The old age –
“flesh” Paul calls it, meaning human resistance to God’s call is over. The bones on the plane, the
dead Lazarus wept and mourned for, are the perfect signs of an aeon past. But that time is over
or can be in a community of believers. Its successor is an age of spirit — mortal bodies brought
to life through “God’s Spirit dwelling in you.” That indeed bespeaks the hope of future
resurrection, but its primary reference is other. As in the days of the 6th century prophet, Saint
Paul cares chiefly about a people now alive. The church is not a community forever exploring
the biblical past. It is not fixed on thoughts of the future, important though they are. Its great
concern is spirit now, life now. It is committed to the superiority of a life lived for God over
living death.
To follow Jesus is to live for God, to seek God’s will and do it. Being Christian is a profoundly
religious act. Moral behaviour is the fruit of it, but the main thing is admitting the Spirit, the
totality of Godhead, into ones being. It is living as if God were the greatest reality in life, for this
alone can assure our taking the world, or humanity, the fact of now, seriously. It anticipates our
divinization, participating in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
Christians speak of the life of the baptized
as a new life and so it is. But we need to be clear what we mean when we say that. The same is
true of the phrase “supernatural life.” In common parlance supernatural means “spooky,”
“eerie.” Not to us. It is another word for life in the spirit, God’s Spirit dwelling in you. Still, there
are hazards. Of these the chief is the possibility that we become convinced that there is
ordinary life, and then some kind of religious addition from another sphere, perhaps basically
after death or in the future. The last stop of the line is a depreciation of this life in favor of that,
the code words being “supernatural: good,” “natural: bad.” Jesus knew nothing of a life that
was bad, only the distinct possibility of misspending life. Paul’s “flesh” was not ordinary,
everyday life; it was a life of disobedience, a life lived in revolt.
For us who bear the name Christian, the life of faith is ordinary life headed in the direction God
intends. It is the whole creation redeemed, that is, oriented in a godward direction. Grace is
letting God accomplish all God means to be and do in us. The life of Christian belief is life at its
most reasonable, not unreasonable or non-reasonable. So, think and pray hard these next two
weeks about what it means to be called to such a life. Do you want it, really want it, or is being
a Christian merely a matter of old habit? Would you be redeemed, reborn in water and Holy
Spirit? Then prepare for the Easter season rejoicing, not lugubrious at the death of Jesus, but
repentant, joyful and confident in the merciful justice of God.
Kevin+
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