Five and a half weeks ago, we crossed our foreheads with ashes and entered into this intentional period of fasting, prayer, and repentance. Many of us are beginning to feel the weight of the season of Lent. Indeed, if our Lenten commitments are to produce much spiritual fruit at all, they are probably heavy enough to weigh us down at this point. Our lectionary texts during Lent help us feel that weight, but they also direct us through the spiritual work we should be doing. After all, abstaining from candy or television is not because candy and television are bad by themselves (although overuse of either is certainly bad). We are preparing the way of the Lord and learning to walk in Jesus’ footsteps as he makes his way to the cross. We are nearing Holy Week, when Jesus will show us the cost of following him. How interesting that before we enter into that week of the narrative, the lectionary takes us to the raising of Lazarus and also tells us of the resurrected multitude in Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones! Why do we get resurrection before the Crucifixion?

It is true that we are simply following the narrative of Jesus’ life, and in that narrative, Jesus raises Lazarus just before entering into Jerusalem. However, we need to look a little deeper to see why these two passages, John 11 and Ezekiel 37, are paired for this Sunday in the Christian year. Why now? Why this pairing? What are we to learn from these passages that will prepare us for Holy Week and the cross?

The Ezekiel passage seems fairly Lent-appropriate to me. The imagery is thick and hard to miss. A prophet stands in a dry valley. I imagine the wind blowing dust around, tossing Ezekiel’s threadbare robes and possibly giving him a bit of a chill. He is surrounded by dead bodies so dry that they are now simply a pile of bones. The prophet enters the disturbing site of a mass grave, perhaps even more disturbing because no one bothered to bury these bodies. When many people hear this story, they know it is a story of resurrection and hope, so they mentally check in somewhere around the “Can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3) part . . . but let us follow the prophet, who says that God led him all around the many bones. We are told later that these are the slain of Israel. That means these are the people to whom Ezekiel has been speaking all along. In other words, these are the people who did not listen. To take it one step further, this is the result of Ezekiel’s message— not repentance and forgiveness, but failure, stubborn sinfulness, hardheartedness, and, ultimately, death and decay. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Ezekiel to be led all around knowing that the very purpose of his ministry was to keep this from happening. Despite his own faithfulness, he was faced once more with the reality and end result of human sinfulness.

Just as God led Ezekiel “all around” (37:2) to survey the scene, we too must meditate on this reality. When we follow in our minds the course of human sinfulness, we see that it leads to death and decay. Our truest repentance will come out a deeper knowledge of where our hardheartedness leads us. For our own edification, we must sit and meditate on where the course of our lives will go without divine grace. We must walk with Ezekiel all around the valley, because a major part of witnessing the story of God’s redemption is seeing just how much we need it. Those of us who have been staring into the darkness of our souls during the Lenten season know that we really do need God’s resurrection.

The second reason for hearing these stories at this point in the Christian calendar has nothing to do with us or our sin. Purely external to us, it has everything to do with learning that it is God who brings life out of death and that God is the one acting for our redemption. Our knowledge of God’s identity is often tied to God’s action for (or in some cases, against) humanity. God says repeatedly in the Old Testament, “You shall know that I am the Lord,” and it is always related to divine activity toward humanity.

When we witness the type of resurrection offered in our lectionary texts, we see God’s promise of restoration to God’s people after they have completely cut themselves off from God’s love. We see a Savior who has the power to overcome death and yet weeps over the deaths of those he loves. We see a God who pulls us up from the depths but who gently makes us see to what depths we have sunk. Part of the story shows us who we are, but the rest shows us who God is.

I see these stories of resurrection as God’s way of giving us strength for the rest of the journey. Jesus beckons us to follow him, but the journey to the cross is daunting. For the past five weeks, we have been following Jesus as he instructs/warns us about his eventual suffering and death. However, when faced with the reality of taking up our crosses to follow, we quickly realize there is nothing within that equips us to do it. At this point, the Lord gently reminds us that it is not about us. The spiritual work we do during Lent was never intended to be what sustains us and what brings us the new life we need. Rather, our spiritual work is meant only to help us clear the path so that we can see God’s work in and for us. It is God who will strengthen us to follow Jesus. It is God who will bring resurrection where there was only death and decay. It is God who can breathe new life into our mortal bodies.