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“The Good Bones of Advent”

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1–14 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...) Can hope take root and bloom again in the shadow of loss? Advent (we are told) is the season of waiting. Waiting to see… Waiting to know… That hope can take root and bloom again. And so we wait. W.H. Auden in his Advent oratorio poem called “For the Time Being” called Advent “the most trying time of all…”1 (#b49bb2fb-0e6e-4ba2-aa19-0eefc2168827) We are asked to wait in two times at the same time: we are waiting in the now, the time being, and we a living in the growing light of a new dawn that it not yet here. Personally, the trouble I am finding with all this waiting is a problem that many of us probably share . . . that we’re also really busy, which serves to distract us from the waiting and any sense that in Advent we are living in two type of time. Most of the time right now I really don’t know what time it is. Is there a right way we are supposed to wait for the coming of Christ and Christmas? I’m not sure, but from what I know about the values of our tradition, I feel confident that we are not supposed to distract ourselves all the way to Christmas like I find myself sometimes doing. We should keep our wits about us as the coming of the Christ child draws near. Theres a familiar joke about this dynamic of waiting that I keep coming back to this week: A pious fellow was driven up onto his rooftop by the rising waters of a massive flood, and prayed to God for help. A rowboat came by and offered to bring the man to higher ground, but he says “don’t worry, God will save me.” And the waters rose. The National Guard makes an effort to rescue the man, but he says “don’t worry, God will safe me.” And the waters rose. Later on a helicopter comes by to save the man, but he says again, “don’t worry, God will save me. Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got the chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “God, I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!” And God replied, “Well, I sent you a rowboat, and a rescue team, and a helicopter, what more did you expect?” I think the kernel of truth at the center of this playful story is that there is a wrong way to wait. And so I’m trying to watch for what God’s invitations into the deeper parts of Advent I might be passing up in the hope that something clear and obvious will come to me. And perhaps others are doing the same. I’ve talked with a few different people in our community these past few weeks who describe the feeling of being on a strange journey in this holiday season — traveling uncertainly through an unfamiliar landscape. The scripture reading from Ezekiel invites us all to go together into a strange land, a valley of bones, where we too might encounter God breathing new life into the old bones. God takes Ezekiel to the valley, and asks, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel at this time was with his people in Bablyon, a time known as the Babylonian exile, or Babylonian captivity. For the past many weeks in worship we’ve read stories of the prophets of Israel whose lives were shaped by empires and kings like Nebuchadnezzar wielding power and moving people out of their homes and into exile. We read the prophet Isaiah who foretold that the people would be sent into exile. Then Jeremiah sent words of advice to his people in exile from back home. And this week we meet Ezekiel, who was a priest taken into exile alongside others from Jerusalem and who worked under duress to live out his priestly calling In this distressing context, God takes Ezekiel to a mystical place, seemingly outside of time, to offer a lesson about something new coming from something old. In the context of death and destruction, God makes possible something new. Anyone who has spent time talking about houses knows of the phrase: “they have good bones.” The houses with good bones, it is suggested, may not be a house in top condition, but they are strong and solid — a frame to build on which you can have trust and confidence. I would suggest that Advent is a season with good bones. It’s cold. And we’re waiting for something to happen, in the cold. And it’s dark as we’re waiting in the cold. And even as we wait with hope in the cold dark for a miracle to happen, there is a sense that the odds are stacked against us. God is going to take on human form in the identity of a helpless baby and come and share in our common humanity? This is the basis of our hope? The odds feel stacked against us. But Advent has good bones. Auden in his Advent poem wrote, “we who must die demand a miracle. How could the Eternal do a temporal act? Nothing can save us that is possible.” When I think of the valley of bones in our...