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Have you ever been in the valley of dry, dead bones like the prophet Ezekiel was taken to? Looking on the desolation and final effects of sin is not pleasant. I think of the scene in the Lord of the Rings where the heroes that comprised the “Fellowship of the Ring” went down into the dwarf mines deep under the mountains, long empty, except for the dry, brittle bones of all the long dead dwarves who lost an ancient battle to evil invaders. In one room, with every step they took, they were crunching and cracking some dry, dead bone.
I suppose the closest we come is walking within a modern cemetery. No one needs much of the Law preached at a funeral or burial. The effects of the Law are right there in front of everyone — the wages of sin is death. Looking on the desolation and the final price of our sin is not pleasant. The casket seems so final a place. The body is so still and cold. The bones are already on the way to drying out.
But there are lots of times and places where we come to terms with death and dying, not just at funerals and burials. Anytime we come face to face with our sin, anytime the mirror of the Law shows us our sinfulness, anytime we are stung by our failures past or present, anytime we are in danger or peril, it is amazing how quickly the wages of sin seem to come to mind. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law of God, perfect, righteous, holy, and just as it is. On the other hand, we are by nature sinful and unclean, unrighteous, unholy, unjust, unable to live up to God's demands.
You know where this comes home for you. We fail our loved ones all the time. We fail to be the spouses and parents that God asks us to be. We fail to love and forgive and show mercy to our neighbor, as we ought to. We bear grudges. We gossip, slander, and think the worst of our neighbor instead of loving, supporting, and building up the neighbor. We fail to love God above all other things. We neglect the regular preaching and teaching of His Word. We fail to hold regular devotion and prayer each day in our homes. We deny and run away from God in all sorts of ways, just as surely as the disciples did at Jesus' arrest and trial and crucifixion. Instead, we run after every other sort of false god — including worrying about our own material possessions, worrying about our future prosperity, placing our own interests above those of Christ and His Church.
These failures to love God and neighbor, as God has asked us to in His Holy Word, are to be punished, God says in His Word. There has to be a toll exacted in exchange for breaking the Law of God. The result of sin is the valley of dry, dead bones Ezekiel walked through. It is the casket and burial. It is death and destruction, the wages paid out for sin.
What answer is there to this death and destruction? Are we to always live in fear of sin, death, and the power of the devil, and of being punished for our sin? “Son of man, can these bones live?” Can these trembling disciples live? Can we live and not be destined to be just another set of dry bones for all eternity? What is the answer to the sting and wages of sin — death?
Our Church body, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, made a most unfortunate decision during Holy Week to cancel the popular radio/Internet program “Issues, Etc.” hosted by Dallas native Rev. Todd Wilken, from KFUO in St. Louis, the Synod's historic radio station. This program was a real Gospel outreach that touched many people around the world. Without getting into details, suffice it to say that there was no legitimate reason for its cancellation. An online petition, which many of you have signed, has been started asking for the program to be reinstated by the synodical leadership that was responsible for its cancellation. We pastors have provided some reading material on this subject outside on the narthex table for you to take home.
Some of the responses and comments left on the internet petition are touching. Many people have come to the Christian faith, not just to Lutheranism, by this program. Listen to this person's comment who signed the petition and think of the grim specter of death that he regularly faces:
30. Jason Allen, [member of] St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Fort Riley, KS
I am in the Army and a friend gave me the web site of “Issues, Etc” when I was getting ready to go to be deployed to Iraq. I was fearful I would be killed in the war. I told a friend who always talked to me at the gym and he gave me the web site and told me to look up a program by Dr. [Louis] Brighton [a professor at the St. Louis seminary] and this would be a big help to me. When I listened to Dr. Brighton he told us about heaven and what Jesus did for us to get there. It was like a spring day in my life. If I ever get to St. Louis I am going to look him up. When I was growing up my parents never went to church but once or twice a year. I had a lot of fear of Christ and that he was going to punish me. I looked in several Lutheran web sites to see if I could find out what happened to “Issues, Etc” and found one that said a church president took it off [the air]. I did not have time to read all the information that was in there. I would like to ask him [the president] if he has ever been in the Army and had a best friend die in your arms, like happened to me in Iraq. Thanks Dr. Brighton [for your comforting message].
[Taken from http://www.petitiononline.com/Issues/petition.html]
In this program, through means of Gospel preaching and teaching, Jesus Christ has brought Himself into the dark room of death that this man lives in on a daily basis, confronted as he is in the heat of war with the sting of sin, with the prospect of dry and shattered bones all about him, even holding death in his own arms. Here, through preaching His Word in this man's ear, Jesus has come once again and appeared where before He was not, in a great miracle, to speak His peace and comfort to this man. Heaven awaits the believer, as Dr. Brighton and Pastor Wilken taught the man over the Internet, and Jesus has not come to be our judge and executioner. Rather He came to be judged and be executed on our behalf so that we would be given eternal life in heaven.
Here, in this sanctuary, from this pulpit, at this rail and altar and font, through the Means of Grace, Jesus Christ has brought Himself into your dark room of death, into the valley of dry bones that we men and women live in on a daily basis, confronted as we are by the war with Satan himself, with his attacks and temptations, with his casting of doubt and despair, by his stinging us with the threat of death and punishment for sin. Here, through preaching His Gospel Word into your ear, Jesus comes again and again and appears where before He was not, in an ongoing miracle of love and grace, to speak peace and comfort to you and me. Peace to you. Life instead of death is yours. Faith instead of doubt is yours. Grace and mercy instead of fear and punishment are yours. Forgiveness instead of guilt is yours.
This is the Gospel ministry that the Holy Scriptures and that our Lutheran Confessions talk about — to preach rightly the Gospel, dividing rightly Law and Gospel and comforting repentant sinners, and to rightly administer the Gospel sacraments so that the forgiveness of Christ might be applied to each sinner in this wondrous, concrete, tangible way that cannot be taken away from you for all eternity. Here in the upper room on the evening of that glorious Easter Day, our Lord breathed life into His Church, breathed life into the dead, dry bones with the same creative, life–giving breath that first gave our father Adam life, that brought all things into existence that are and ever have been. There is, in our Lord's resurrection, a new reality of life, and in this singular act of creating the Church by giving to her the authority to forgive sins in His name, the missionary command to baptize and make disciples, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is giving Himself to the world for all of eternity, becoming one with us and making real for us the reconciliation with the Father He has won for us.
It is all possible because of our Lord's atoning death and resurrection. Now, we must live by faith in that new life, that new reality, that new creation that is ours now but not fully completed until the Last Day. In this time of faith, we must hold fast by faith to the Gospel ministry that our Lord has established, to the preaching of His Gospel and His Means of Grace. Without them, we are dry bones. With them, we are living flesh and blood.
Now is not the time to doubt, but believe. It is hard not to doubt like Thomas when we cannot see with our own eyes what Jesus has promised He is doing for us. It is hard not to doubt like Thomas when we only see our own sin and shortcomings. It is hard not to doubt like Thomas when we see how much it costs to rightly proclaim the Gospel here and around the world, both in dollars, and in cost of being persecuted by those who do not want to hear the Gospel. It is definitely hard not to doubt like Thomas when we become beholden to the satanic ideas of this age, when we have to see evidence before we do the right thing, before we will simply just grasp onto the Gospel Means of Grace by faith. It is the trap our Synod's bureaucrats have fallen into when they cancel, without reason, a pure Gospel outreach like “Issues, Etc.”, because the show encourages people to live by faith and not by the sight of numbers in the pews and dollars in the collection plates. Not just our grandfather's synod but also the church of the Holy Scriptures, the Apostles, and Prophets, is one that lives by faith and not by sight.
We are not called to ask our Lord to produce the nail marks and His riven side. Thomas was allowed the gift of seeing those things so that He might be a witness for us on our behalf. So Thomas' gift is our gift. Blessed are we who live by faith in that apostolic witness of the Scriptures and not by sight. Blessed are we who, while not having seen, do believe that Christ is risen indeed.
Take comfort, dear christians. Your Lord Jesus Christ has breathed His resurrection, creation breath of life into our dry bones and has resurrected us into His body now, and will resurrect each of us, body and soul, at the last day. He did it that these who were dead to sin would live. He still comes and breathes that new life into us through His Gospel in His Church. Just as it is for Jason in Iraq, it is the great “Spring day” of new life for us all. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory over death through our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, now and forever! Amen.
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