16 May, 2017
Speaker: Matt Andrew
Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14
V3: “Son of man, can these bones live?”
Ezekiel is faced with the absence of hope. It seems to be an absurd question,
so Ezekiel replies, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
The response to Ezekiel’s answer is a
command for Ezekiel to prophesise to the bone. The sovereign Yahweh is
operating.
V5: The purpose of this prophecy: “I will
put breath in you and you will come to life, and you will know that I am the
Lord.” This unidentified group of people will come to life and they will know
Yahweh is Yahweh and the relationship is restored. We are told the purpose before
the description of the vision. There will be knowledge, and the knowledge of
Yahweh. Ezekiel’s speech is not recorded. This is all about Yahweh and Yahweh’s
words.
As Ezekiel prophesised we see a two stage
process.
First there is a reversal of the biological
process of decomposition. Bones come together, muscles are made and skin covers
them.
A further act of God’s creative sovereignty
is still needed for the prophecy to occur: Ezekiel is told to prophesise to the
“breath”.
In Eden we also see a two stage animation
of human life during the creation of Adam. There is a spring which splits of
four rivers, flowing out into the four corners of the known world at that time.
Here there is no river. We have very dry
bones. Yahweh’s creative Spirit is gathered, and the dry bones come back to
life, from the four corner of the world.
We are given a clue: they stand on their
feet at this stage and we are told they are an army. The prophet is starting to
make connections at this point about who these people are. At this point,
Yahweh tells him the meaning of this vision: these bones are the people of
Israel.
“My people, I am going to 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.” The covenantal curses of Deuteronomy is
being reversed.
The refusal to address the meaning of the
action up until this point is a grace. The message can be received as one of
hope and not judgment.
The shift in imagery: valley to graves.
Public defeat of a vast army. Yahweh will
deal with Israel’s public unfaithfulness with an act of public faithfulness.
When you are exploring an occasion, you begin
as an apprentice. What we learn is that Yahweh has sovereignly apprenticed
himself to history. He will bring about His purpose despite people’s
faithlessness. The hope we see is still bare bones. The enfleshment of Israel
will be done with Yahweh’s own flesh. The resurrection is by God’s own son.
Yahweh meets us as one who’s joined in our history. God meets us in a message
that concentrates on the possibility of Christ. To know Yahweh is to know this.
The recurring theme: to this group of Christian leaders, we live in a time
where, through scandal, financial and sexual abuse, item after item, we see the
name of Jesus Christ in the church dragged through the mud, and our temptation
is to despair. We are told not to despair at the state of the church, the seeming
closing down of the horizon of possibilities. We are joining in the work of the
one who’s always bringing about His purposes.
23 May, 2017
Speaker: Sylvia Collinson
Scripture: John 11
11 years ago, Sylvia’s husband developed
leukaemia, became weaker, had blood donations, went into hospice, and died.
Wouldn’t it be a shock if her husband comes back again? No one expects people
who die, and are buried, to come back to life.
John’s Gospel
The Book of Signs (Chapters 1-11)
The Book of Glory (Chapters 12-20)
Epilogue (Chapter 21)
In Jesus we see the God who weeps.
Not like Greco-Roman gods. He displays the
full range of human emotions.
Why did he weep?
l His emotion is not just sadness for Martha and Mary.
l It is lament before a great disaster: Jerusalem didn’t recognise the
time of God’s coming.
l Strong anger, outrage, emotional indignation at: Tragic results of
sin, sickness and death. Persistent unbelief of his nation.
We too must feel people’s pain and sorrow
as well as their joys.
In Jesus we see the God who cares for the
unimportant.
Women, children, the disabled, foreigners…
Jesus spoke to Martha as fully autonomous,
intelligent being. Jesus knew that we learn more from our reflection on life
than 100 sermons.
He didn’t talk to her, but with her.
She recognised him as the Resurrection
& Life: “I believe that you are the Messiah, The Son of God Who is to come
into the world.” This confession from a woman parallels that of Peter in the
synoptics.
So Christ gave… (gifts)… to equip his
people for service, so that the body of Christ can be built up…” (Ephesians
4:11-13).
In Jesus we see that God who gives new
life.
Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones. God was
showing Ezekiel that the message he was about to bring to Israel is that of a
new life.
Lazarus was really dead. The Jews thought
that the spirit of a dead person hovers around the body for three days, and
then goes away. This was the fourth day, so Lazarus was really dead.
“I have come that they may have life, and
have it to the full.” (John 10:10). (Life at its scarcely imagined best –
Carson)
Jesus was all that humanity was meant to
be.
l Full range of emotions
l Full range of relationships with people.
Life to the full does not mean a life of
comfort, free of pain, suffering & temptations. But through suffering God’s
glory may be seen.
The God who weeps with us in all our
situations. He gently leads as we grow more like Jesus.
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