When There Are No Words Ezekiel 37: 1-14, Romans 8: 22-27 May 27, 2012 (The Day of Pentecost)

Rev. Deborah Dail Denbigh Presbyterian Church Ezekiel 37: 1-14 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, Mortal, can these bones live? I answered, O Lord God, you know. 4Then he said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord. 7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11Then he said to me, Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and

you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord. Romans 8: 22-27 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Sermon Waiting is never easy. For expectant mothers, waiting for the birth of the child within them is a time mixed with joyful anticipation and some measure of fear. One of the fears is the fear of labor the often excruciating process of giving birth. When labor does begin, no one knows how long it will last. Will it be hours or days? Once labor starts theres no end to it until the baby is born. When I was delivering our oldest son, the pain of labor got so bad that I announced to the doctor that I was going to die. He simply and nonchalantly said: No, youre not. At one point during the labor I got it in my head that I was going to leave the hospital. I somehow got in my mind that if I could just leave the hospital the labor pains would stop. And no, I was not under the influence of any medication when I had this crazy notion!

The Apostle Paul in Romans 8 says were all in labor. In fact, creation itself is in labor. We are all waiting and longing for the birth of Gods new creation. When God created the heavens and the earth and all within it, God said: It is good. Everything was in harmony with Gods will and purpose. Gods relationship with Adam and Eve was whole. Adam and Eves relationship with one another was perfect and whole. Creation itself was in harmony with God and humans. It was good. It was very good indeed. In Genesis 3, we read that Adam and Eve blew it. They defied God. They sinned. Harmony was replaced by disharmony; wholeness by brokenness. But even as God cursed, God continued to offer grace and with it a promise that there was still hope of things returning to the way they were . . . someday. Until then, all of creation would be in labor. All of creation would be waiting. Waiting is almost always difficult. One of the problems with waiting is that we usually dont know how long the wait will be. When I visit with people in the hospital before they go into surgery, they have been given a surgery time. They have their minds set on that time. Often that time comes and goes and they are still in the holding area. They wait. As time passes, the waiting becomes more difficult. They are hungry, they are nervous, they are ready to get through the surgery and get on with healing. Still, there is an end in sight. One of the things our trainers would say to us when we were running in preparation for the 8K some of us did last weekend was you can do anything for a minute and later as we were supposed to be running for longer stretches you can do anything for 30 minutes. Somehow knowing the pain was not going to last forever was helpful. You can handle anything if you know theres an end in sight. Well, when does our suffering and pain and that of creation come to an end? When will wars cease? When will violence in our streets end? When will relationships be whole again? When will devastating natural disasters cease? When will disease be gone forever?

We dont know how long it will be, but as Christians we believe it will be. It will happen. God has promised that all will be made new. There will be a new heaven and new earth. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Through Christs death and resurrection this promise is guaranteed. But were still in labor. Creation is still in labor. We are still waiting. And waiting can be really hard, especially when you dont know how long youll be waiting. And so we pray. Or at least we try. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesnt seem to help at all. Sometimes, we dont even have words to pray. Many of us remember September 11, 2001 like it was yesterday. I remember watching the news and these sounds of grief coming out of me. I remember trying to pray and some of it was just groans, sighs and cries. Words were inadequate and I had no real words anyway. Groans and sighs came from within me. They came from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit prayed for me. The Message translates our text from Romans 8: Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, Gods Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we dont know how or what to pray, it doesnt matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. We are all waiting for new birth in our lives were waiting for that chronic sin or addiction in our lives to be healed and transformed; were waiting for a relationship in our lives to be healed and made whole; we are waiting for violence in our streets and in our homes and in our world to come to an end; we are waiting for there to be no more starvation, no more injustice, no more exploitation of the vulnerable, no more cancer or other horrific disease or disabling condition or mental illness, no more sorrow, no more pain. We are waiting for

maiming, destructive natural disasters to cease. We are waiting for the new heaven and the new earth. Some of us are very tired of waiting. Weve prayed ourselves out. Some of us are out of words and out of hope. The moment we get tired in the waiting, Gods Spirit is right alongside us helping us along. If we dont know how or what to pray, it doesnt matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. I think of my words to my obstetrician when I was in labor: Im going to die. He made a promise to me he could not necessarily guarantee: Youre not going to die. However, the promise of God to those whom he has claimed as his own is true and guaranteed: You will not die. You will live with me eternally. The labor pains seem unbearable. The pain of this life can make us want to get off the delivery table and just leave to get rid of the pain. But the promise is ours in Christ Jesus, that there is something more. There is a new heaven and a new earth to come. And we are not alone in our suffering. The Holy Spirit is with us. The Holy Spirit is holding our hand. The Holy Spirit is praying for us when we cannot pray. We are not alone. I think also of the trainers saying to us as we ran You can do anything for a minute. Thats not exactly a true statement, although it was helpful to hear at times. I think a truer statement for life is We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. I think a truer statement is The Holy Spirit will intercede on our behalf with sighs too deep for words. On this Day of Pentecost, I rejoice that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church of Jesus Christ and on each of us. I am grateful that when there are no words, the Holy Spirit gives voice to our deepest longings, our most profound pain and our greatest needs.