Leaning Into Lent | Week 4 | Old Testament (3-16-26)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hey everybody, welcome back. We are um here uh going through our Linton devotionals uh again. We're so grateful for uh the Reverend Michael Preck being with us this week. We're gonna go through our normal pattern on Mondays, we're gonna go through the Old Testament text and the Psalm. Wednesdays, we're gonna hit the uh New Testament epistle, then on Friday, we're gonna go through the gospel lesson. Um, but Michael is here, he is the senior pastor at Fair Hope Union Methodist Church. He's a dear friend of mine. We got the chance to serve together for five years at Dauphin Way, and he still considers me a friend. And so that's a win in my book. Um, but I am grateful for his uh willingness to be with us this morning. So thanks, Michael, for being here.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Great to be here. Love to talk the Bible and especially in y'all's company. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Well, uh let's hear from um the psalm. Uh Sarah has been reading for us uh the psalm each week to kind of show the the overarching themes and how it kind of is the glue that connects some of these passages together. So will you read for us uh Psalm 130?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yes. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord who could stand, that there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I think it I mean, obviously a lot of our psalms uh help us to think about just Israel writ large, but um hearing about uh the redemption of Israel, hearing these themes kind of drives us into our Ezekiel passage this morning, uh, which comes to us from uh chapter 37. It's verse 1 through 14. It's uh a little bit lengthy, and so I'm not gonna read it in its entirety. I'm gonna summarize it for the most part and maybe hit some of the highlights. Um, this is the passage where uh Ezekiel says the hand of the Lord brought him to a valley that was full of bones. Um he led me back and forth among them, and they were very the bones were very dry, the them bones, them bones, them dry bones. Um and he asked, the Lord asked him, As Son of Man, can these bones live? And I said, Sovereign Lord, you alone know. And so he told him to prophesy with the bones and tell the bones to hear the word of the Lord, and that he will make breath enter them, and he will they will come to life, and he's gonna attach tendons and put flesh upon them, and and he was gonna cover this with skin and put breath into them, and they will come to life. Then you will know that I'm the Lord. Um so uh Ezekiel says, He prophesied as he was commanded, and as he is prophesying, there is a noise, a rattling sound. And these bones came together bone to bone, a look, tendons and flesh appeared upon them, um, but there was no breath in them. So then he said, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say, This is what the sovereign Lord says Come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live. So he prophesied as he commanded, and the breath entered them, and they stood on their feet, and there's a vast army. Then he said to me, Uh, Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is gone, we are cut off. Therefore, prophesy to them and say, This is what the sovereign Lord says, My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have done it, declares the Lord. Um, so this is Ezekiel uh 37, 1 through 14. And what we like to do is to do a first pass of the scripture and just say what stood out, what was uh a significant thing, what was something you heard this time you hadn't heard before, just any kind of like little off-the-cuff nuggets before you dive deeper into the context and uh other parts of the text.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

There's a pattern in a lot of these texts of God instructing people to do things and then them just doing it. And um, and I've said this before with uh uh another text that we've gone through this series, um, where if it was me, you know, before I would do it, I would be like, Okay, well how and and why and when and why me and things like that. But it's saying, you know, God said do this, and then he's like, Oh, okay. Then he just doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

One of the things that struck me that I'd never noticed before is the the language here. Uh you said it as you were uh summarizing it, you were using the NIV translation, prophesy to the breath, which I don't know about y'all, but I don't usually think about talking to breath. Yeah. And one of the things you learn in any intro to Hebrew or Old Testament class is that breath and spirit and wind are all the same word in Hebrew and in Greek. In Hebrew, it's ruach. And so that word ruach shows up so much in this passage. And every translation that came across um makes choices about well, when should we say wind and when should we say breath? And so um in the NRSV, I think it's prophesy to the winds. Uh here it says prophesy to the breath. And this idea of seeing them all as one thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Um, I read this and all of a sudden I was rethinking Genesis 2 when God breathes and do the sinews that he has formed. Yeah. And instead of thinking of a breath, which I always thought of, you know, God b bending down and giving mouth to mouth.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Uh instead I began to think of God sending a wind. And what would it how would my day be different? I'm jumping ahead a little. How would my life be different if I walked around feeling like every wind that passed my face and and tickled my arm hair um was the presence of God, was the breath of God, and was the animating force. Um so that that fluidity in that translation got me rethinking a bunch of other passages.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Well, and I think that's such a good word too, because the Yeah, we we might jumble up our our sections a little bit today, but in the sense that they are not animated until a spirit enters them. Um and so yeah, it it shows on here, uh he says, say to the bones, I will make breath enter you. And then he says it again, I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. And uh there's just kind of this understanding that even though the bones are put together, even though the body is put together, if they don't have the spirit of God within them, they're not truly alive. If he isn't if he's not the one who is animating them and bringing them about. Um, so as we look at kind of the context of this, and we look at Ezekiel, I always really like remembering who the prophet is, where they're from, what their job is. One of my one of those helpful things for me when I was in seminary was we had this chart that was like, it named the prophet, it named where they're from, when they're operating, who they're talking to, and their main themes. Because the prophets, sometimes we read them all as like one kind of thing. Um, but an important context, if you haven't done a whole lot of studying of like the biblical history, is that there was a a time when all of Israel was together, and then there was a time when it was divided. And there was the northern part of Israel and the southern part of Israel, and uh Israel in the north and Judah in the south, and some of the prophets are from the south and they're talking to the north. And some of the prophets are from the north and they're talking to the north after the north has been destroyed by some enemies, and like every prophet And historically, yeah, that's a thing people really like is when people from the other region.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

You were wrong, or what you should do.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

We love that here. I know it's when you know it's very relatable. So uh I think it's helpful to have like, all right, so who is Ezekiel? Um, who is he trying to talk to? Is he uh encouraging people or is he reprimanding them? Is he trying to one though about something coming, or is he talking about something that's coming forward? Uh there's a little bit of all of that amongst the prophets, but sometimes they have a more specific aim. And so just for a little bit of context, uh, is Ezekiel um he's writing to the exiles in Babylon. So this is after all of the country has been exiled. So first, yeah, the the Israelites are wiped out in the northern part, and then the southern parts of Israel are are sent out into Babylon, um, and they uh are kind of thrown to the wind, right? The people are not at home, they have been removed from there, and there's so many unique features of Ezekiel. He's kind of an eccentric dude, right? He uh he ate scrolls to talk about um how he was consuming God's message. He cooks over human with dunk, human excrement, as a way to symbolize the uh that Judah has defiled itself. Um he lied, he laid on aside for 390 days to talk about the the punishment. So Ezekiel um is a a unique character, but he gives us a a helpful understanding of where the Israelites were, where the people of the Jewish people were during this kind of time in their life. Anything else from the context of this text or just kind of things about Ezekiel, the prophets, or how this story fits into the grand scheme in the narrative that you want to mention?

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Well, just building on that that context, by the time he is talking about uniting all of Israel, and as you go on in the passage, you you get that he's not just talking about Judah or one group, uh just how impossible it would have seemed at this point, because the northern kingdom has been conquered at this point for so long and been so scattered. Um so uh uniting bones sounds like an impossible task. Sounds like uh can this even be done? Yeah. Um but no more than the idea that the northern kingdoms, that the the tribes that have been scattered are gonna exist again. Yeah. Um it just feels like an impossibility.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Oh, that's a good word. It makes that metaphor work even more too. It's like the body has all these different parts that can come back together. You have to have the sinew, you have to have the tendons, you have to have the skin. And like there's all these different parts of the people. There's some to Babylon, some to Assyria, some to wherever they've been scattered. And only the Spirit of God can give them life again, can bring them back together. All right. Well, how about so we have to bridge the scripture to our lives to ask like, how does this speak to us? So we can read it in this context, we can understand kind of the background, but this is the word of the Lord. And so uh how would you bridge this? So if you're gonna preach about this or if you were reflecting on it, if you want somebody take away some takeaways, what would those be?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

I think one takeaway I had that I haven't had um from like a preaching perspective on this before is um you know that there's no situation or person that's beyond God's ability to restore. Um because when you see, you know, dry bones, not even like a a skeleton, but just like scattered dry bones. And and when you take into the context, you know, like the the conflicts and stuff at this time, you know, you see that and you're like, well, nothing I can do about that. But there's there's nothing that God can't speak life into. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

That's the first place my mind went. And then as a a digging into that, and how does God um rescue or redeem the seemingly lost causes of the impossible things? Uh I came back to to this passage, uh, to verse six. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. And the you is the bones, God's talking to the bones. And this uh dual action of connecting and covering um that the raw material of the redemption is there. It doesn't look like much, it looks like bones. Um, but God's promise is that this bone and this bone are gonna get connected, like in the song you just sang. Um and and God's gonna tie things together and then put a new thing on top, cover it over. Um and I think of uh that maybe being a new story, a new narrative, a new uh way of narrating what's happened. And and so when we're in these places where it feels like, where do we go from here? Everything's dissolved, or you know, all our efforts are in vain, feels like something has um failed and died, and and we wonder if it was worth anything. Uh God takes those bones and he draws connections and he covers them. He puts kind of one one thing over it. And I don't know exactly how it developed that covering, but those are the words I would focus on, connecting and covering.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, I um I hear in this kind of the speaking, he's saying, speak to these bones. You know, he's saying, Prophesy over them. This idea of the word of the Lord is what kind of brings the spirit of God. And and and today, as people of the word, and people of as we're doing right now talking about the scripture, um, I I feel like the part of our job is to to share the word, which is this new sp the way of speaking the spirit, bringing the breath, bringing in life. And uh, if we are not continually either in the word, um, you know, reading the Bible, if we're not uh trying to go to Bible study and live it out and read about it, if we're not coming to worship, then we're missing that spirit aspect. Not to say that God can't speak in other ways as well. I think God losing our lives and graces, the means of grace are so abundant. But specifically for this text, I almost feel like the word of the Lord is the thing that unites us and brings us together. It's this commonality, you know, and you know, United Methodism, the scripture is a very important part of how we understand our faith. And so coming together around the word that brings life into our lives so that we can then share that spirit with the world. So that was kind of where I I landed with it. Um anything else from this text that we want to share before we land the plane or or wrap up for today about uh the Ezekiel passage?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I just want to reiterate something Sarah said and that you you touched on and confess that it's hard for me, um, which is the idea that this just begins with a word. That Ezekiel does he tell the bones, you're gonna live again, God's gonna do this, and Ezekiel doesn't know how it's gonna happen. He doesn't have a plan, he does not have those those three points that you put at the end of the story and that say, and now here's how you apply what we've just talked about. And that is so antithetical to my nature. I have to remind myself sometimes is enough simply to say, this is what's gonna God's gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Um I so want to move to the strategy, the plan, to the outline of how we're gonna get it done. And I want to give that to people. I want to say, and here are three things you can do this week. Um I appreciate Ezekiel's trust and his discipline of saying, I don't have to plan, but I do have a promise and believing that that's enough.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

That's good. Yeah, that's a great well, and I think it's a perfect place to end this conversation on Ezekiel. I encourage you to go back, read the passage again, and be with us on uh Wednesday as you go through the New Testament lesson for this week. Uh Pastor Sarah, would you mind saying a prayer for us?

unknown 15:09

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Let's pray. Gracious God, I thank you for this opportunity where we can come together and learn more about you and your word and spend time in the word with one another. God, I thank you for the fellowship that we have with one another. And God, I ask that you will just remind us as we go about our days that there's no person or situation that is beyond your ability to restore God and just remind us to trust you and remind us that you're with us through everything. And God, I thank you for that, and I thank you for your love and your grace that goes before us and stays with us. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

See y'all on Wednesday.