The Fifth Sunday of Lent finds the church standing in the shadow of death. Not in despair, but in expectation. The appointed readings do not allow us to avert our eyes from death’s reality. Ezekiel is set down in a valley of bleached bones. The psalmist cries from the depths (Psalm 130:1). Martha and Mary weep outside a sealed tomb. Yet in each scene, the same word breaks through: the Lord speaks, and the dead hear His voice. Life comes not from within the grave but from the God who stands outside it and commands it to open.
As Lent draws toward its end, the church is being prepared not merely to mourn at the cross but to stand expectant before an empty tomb. These readings press that expectation deep into the soul: this is what our God does. He raises the dead.
The Valley and the Voice (Ezekiel 37:1-14)
The vision given to Ezekiel is deliberately overwhelming in its desolation. The prophet surveys a valley filled not merely with the dead but with the long-dead. The bones are bleached, dry, and scattered, with no prospect of natural recovery. “Can these bones live?” God asks (Ezekiel 37:3), and the prophet wisely refuses to trust his own assessment: “O Lord God, you know.” What follows is not a gradual improvement or a human effort. It is pure, sovereign, creative speech. God commands the prophet to prophesy to the bones, and as the word goes forth, sinews appear, flesh covers them, and finally the breath; the ruach (pronounced roo-akh is a Hebrew word meaning “spirit,” “breath,” or “wind) the Spirit of God enters, “and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army” (Ezekiel 37:10).
This vision was addressed to Israel in exile, a people who said, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off” (Ezekiel 37:11). The answer to this despair is not a reform program but resurrection. God’s own Spirit breathed into what is completely dead. The bones did not summon the wind. God sent it. This is the pattern of all divine life-giving: the initiative belongs entirely to God, and the life He gives is real, bodily, and inexhaustible.
The Mind of the Spirit (Romans 8:6-11)
Paul carries the Ezekiel vision forward into the life of the baptized. “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). The contrast Paul draws is not between different lifestyles but between two fundamentally different conditions. One condition is governed by the old nature that is hostile to God, the other indwelt by the very Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. The Christian’s hope does not rest on moral effort but on a Person: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).
This is the indicative that grounds all Christian obedience. The Spirit is not merely an influence or an inspiration. The Spirit is the living presence of the resurrection God taking up residence in those who belong to Christ. Because He dwells in us, we are called to walk according to His life-giving rule, not the flesh’s dying one. The life the Spirit produces is not passive or inert; it is active, fruit-bearing, and ordered toward love of God and neighbor (Galatians 5:22-23). This is no cause for pride, it is all gift. But it is a gift that genuinely transforms.
“I Am the Resurrection and the Life”
(John 11:1-45)
All of this finds its culmination at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus arrives four days after the burial. Four days is long enough that no one could mistake what follows for a natural recovery. As Pastor Jennings put it in his sermon on this text, “Lazarus is dead, dead, dead — not in a coma… They are concerned that when he goes to roll back the tomb, the stink of death is going to overwhelm them.” [1] There is no natural hope left to hold onto. Martha’s confession is already orthodox: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). But Jesus presses further: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). The resurrection is not merely a future event on the theological calendar. He is the resurrection, present, standing before the tomb.
What follows is the most dramatic sign in John’s Gospel. Jesus does not merely pray for Lazarus. He commands: “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43). The dead man walks out, still bound in grave clothes. It is the same sovereign, creative word that filled the valley in Ezekiel, and it anticipates the morning when another tomb would stand open, and the One who had wept at a friend’s grave would emerge from His own, never to die again.
This miracle sealed the decision to put Jesus to death (John 11:53). The One who gives life was handed over to death but not because His enemies overpowered Him, but because He willingly bore our sin and the wrath it deserved in our place (Isaiah 53:5-6, 2 Corinthians 5:21). His death is substitutionary: He entered our grave so that His resurrection might become our life. The raising of Lazarus is a sign pointing forward to Easter morning, which is in turn the ground of every believer’s resurrection hope.
As we enter the final days of Lent, these readings call us to do what Martha did and to come to Jesus in the midst of grief and confusion, to hear His word, and to trust that the One who wept at the tomb of His friend is the same One who commands tombs to open. And as Jennings reminds us, that trust is not something we manufacture: “Faith isn’t something that’s mustered up… It is something that is given. It’s based on the merit and the action of the one doing the giving.” [1] He has spoken life into every valley of dry bones. He will speak it into yours.
References
[1] S. Jennings, “SMELC Sermon – John 12:1-8 (Lazarus Context),” sermon transcript, St. Michael’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 5790 W Temperance Rd, Ottawa Lake, MI 49267, Apr. 6, 2025. [Audio transcript]. Available: SMELC Shared Drive, Lectionary/2025/04/06/SMELC_Sermon_20250406.docx
Jeremy Miller
Church Elder