The Rock group Kansas had a song that was popular when I was a kid:

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.

I liked that song from the moment I heard it, not only because it fit my depressive adolescent mood swings but because I liked the humility of it, that we are not ultimate, that we are not eternal, that we are not the center of all existence. It’s a healthy perspective, and very biblical, like the words we say on Ash Wednesday: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind.

Sometimes, though, it’s a little too depressing, this perspective, to think that all you’ve tried to do will come to naught because you are made of mortal stuff. I have to tell you. I’m an optimist. I’m an idealist. Most of the time I’m expecting good things to happen. But sometimes, I get discouraged. I get to feeling blue. My children are great, but I still don’t know how they’re going to turn out. It’s out of my control. And I fret. My health is good, but frankly I get tired of this salad-and-salmon diet I’m on. And I’ve thought about donating my treadmill to Goodwill because it fills me with ill will every time I turn it on. And the church! What can I say? Some Sunday mornings I stand up to preach, look out over the empty pews, and I wonder why I ever answered God’s call. America Online had a story this week about careers always in demand, like barbers and morticians. Gave me pause. I found myself thinking, it’s not too late. Sure, I’m 53, but I might still learn how to cut hair. Or I might just run away and join the circus. You ever feel that way about your work? About your dreams? About your life?

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

Preacher Ezekiel had known better times. He was a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem before the bye-bye Babylonians came to sack the city. They set a siege, then broke through the city walls. Went straight for the Temple on Mount Zion, robbed its treasures, then reduced it to a pile of smoldering rubble. Why would somebody want to do that, desecrate and incinerate a house of worship? Of course, in those days, it wasn’t just our army against your army but our god against your god and the bye-bye Babylonians wanted the people of Jerusalem to know their god, Marduk, could beat up Judah’s god, Yahweh, any day of the week and twice on the Sabbath.

Preacher Ezekiel was one of the “lucky ones” dragged off to the capital city of Babylon to start over. Not like poor old Jeremiah who had to preach to the mess left behind. With the primary leaders gone off to exile, the leftovers didn’t have the sense to listen to him. They kept rebelling against the Babylonians, siding with the Egyptians. Poor Jeremiah would wind up dying down in Egypt.

Not that Preacher Ezekiel had it easy. By no means. In Babylon his flock got discouraged. A lot of them were dead. They didn’t survive the hard journey in chains across the desert from Jerusalem. The few who were left had a hard time just surviving, and they didn’t have much time for a loser god who had let this happen to them. “By the rivers of Babylon” wrote their poet, “there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137). That’s how discouraged they felt. It was their low point. They could remember “the good old days,” but these days were bad, bad, bad. A lot of them gave up. There were so few of them left. They figured their story was over. They figured they would just become good Babylonians now. I reckon even Preacher Ezekiel was thinking about learning how to cut hair when “the hand of Yahweh came upon him” (Ezek 37:1).

In Ezekiel’s vision the Lord takes him down to a valley. A low point. It’s filled with dried bones. Everywhere he turns. No sign of life. No sign of energy. No sign of hope. This image is no stretch of imagination for Preacher Ezekiel’s of corse. It is the picture he wakes to every day among his own depressed people. They are “dust in the wind,” and they know it. The Lord addresses Ezekiel as ben-adam, which means “son of man” or “Adam’s boy” or “human child,” and that is even one step weaker than just calling him “man.” The New Revised Standard translates ben adam to mean simply “mortal.” “Mortal!” the Lord calls him. “Mortal” – that’s exactly how the preacher is feeling, so vulnerable, so temporary, so powerless, so mortal, standing at the low place of his life surrounded by dried up bones. “Mortal,” the Lord asks him, “can these bones live?”

Ezekiel doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t this God know when to give up and let go and leave him alone? “O Yahweh,” Ezekiel moans. “O God – you know.” It’s not a ringing confession of faith in God’s superior knowledge, but a dodge, a resignation, a capitulation to this God who doesn’t let up and doesn’t know when to give up, either. Ezekiel knows God wants him to say yes, but he doesn’t believe those bones can live. He certainly doesn’t feel it. Anybody in his or her right mind will tell you, “No, Lord. Ain’t no way these bones are going to live. Ain’t no way we’re going to grow and thrive as a people again. Ain’t no way we have glorious days ahead of us like the glorious days we remember behind us. Ain’t no way. So give it up already!”

“Preach to these bones,” God tells him. Ezekiel just shakes his head. “Preach to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!’” As if Ezekiel didn’t already feel stupid enough. “Preach to these bones: ‘Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I 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’” (Ezek 37:4-6).

Ezekiel doesn’t believe it, feels stupid doing it, but –give him credit – he does what he’s told. He preaches the word of God to the dry bones at the low point. And what happens? He hears… a noise… a rattling… then a cacophony as the bones begin to move.

Do you remember the old spiritual they used to sing in about this vision in the African American church? Maybe you’ve heard it?

Your toe bone connected to your foot bone.
Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone.
Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone.
Your leg bone connected to your thigh bone.
Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone.
Your hip bone connected to your back bone.
Your back bone connected to your shoulder bone.
Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone.
Your neck bone connected to your head bone.
Now hear the word of the Lord!

Of course, when they sang this song in church, they had to get up and move, prove to the Lord all those connections were working.

Them bones, them bones, gonna walk around.
Them bones, them bones, gonna walk around.
Them bones, them bones, gonna walk around.
Now hear the word of the Lord!

And just to make sure they were good and loose they would sing a few more choruses.

Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
Now hear the word of the Lord!

Well, I’ve heard some preaching in the Black church that will make your dried up old bones get up and move. And I’ve been with some Black churches whose people knew what it was like to feel hopeless and depressed.

Ezekiel can’t believe it. He preaches to the bones, and the bones come together. Even the flesh and sinews appear. But there is still no life in them. The word is powerful, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough. They are still dead. But God isn’t finished. “Preach to the breath, mortal!” God tells him. The Hebrew word can mean “breath” or “wind” or “spirit,” or even capital “S” “Spirit.” “Preach to the breath! Preach to the wind! Preach to the Spirit!” Thus says Yahweh God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” Ezekiel preaches to the wind. And he feels a rustle, then a breeze, then a mighty gale. And the bones begin to breathe again, and they stand to their feet, “a vast multitude” the Bible says.

Just in case he’s slow, just in case he’s too dense to understand what’s going on here, God explains to Ezekiel:

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.’ Therefore preach, and say to them, Thus says the Yahweh 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. And you shall know that I am Yahweh…. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…, then you shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken and will act” (Ezek 37:11-14).

You know what? It’s more than just a dream Preacher Ezekiel has. Soon another preacher who takes the name of his hero Isaiah will remind these same exiles how they started as just one couple, Abraham and Sarah - and God made them a mighty nation - and God can do it again. He will remind them how they were slaves - helpless and hopeless down in Egypt - but God freed them – God led them on an Exodus through the wilderness to a land of their own - and God can do it again. “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord!” cries Isaiah the second to these discouraged exiles. A new exodus is about to start. You just watch our God do it. And in fact, God does. Within fifty years of this Ezekiel’s dream, the people return to Jerusalem. They rebuild their city walls. They rebuild their Temple. They worship their God again on Mount Zion, and they get ready for God’s Messiah to come.

Several centuries later a handful of disciples in an upper room, few in number and still hunted by their enemies, are praying together in one place when suddenly, there’s a noise, a rattling, a rustling, a breeze, then a gale as God’s Spirit falls upon them. They get up and get moving. They preach and three thousand more disciples join them in one day. They keep moving. They keep preaching the Word of God. The Spirit of God keeps moving. And the few, the faithful, who started in an upper room in Jerusalem become a vast multitude around the world. Again and again, when they reach a low point, when all seems hopeless, when anybody with two cents to rub together can see it’s time to give up, pack it in, they turn to God and God gives them hope. They turn to God and God gives them spirit! They turn to God and God does what no mere mortal can do. God brings them out of the valley and back to the mountain top, a vast multitude. And when it has happened they have to say, this is not the work of a ben adam, a mere mortal. Anyone can see, we all know, God did this. That’s what the Word can do. That’s what the Spirit can accomplish. And those of us who know the stories must never say, “It’s over. It’s time to give up. “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Because, God isn’t finished. Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind. Yes, but the wind we are in is the Spirit of God. And the Spirit gives life!

If you are feeling discouraged, weak and afraid today, if you are slogging through one of those low points of your life where you feel dead inside, dry as dust, remember the wind! Remember the Spirit God has promised to send as your advocate. And hear the word of God: “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live,” (says the Lord); “then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.”

Just in case we’re slow. Just in case we’re too dense to understand what’s going on here today, let me explain. We are a great church and hard working. We’ve been through some hard challenges in recent days. We may feel a little desiccated in our service to the Lord. Parched. Weary. We are few. We are weak. We are short on resources. We remember glorious days gone by. We are tempted to give up, to give in to hopelessness. But God says, “Preach to the bones.” God says, “Preach to the wind.” God says, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live….then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.”

Do you believe it? Does anybody hear the bones rustling? Can anybody feel that breeze? Beloved, hear the Word of the Lord! May we pray?

O Lord, Send your Spirit among us, for we feel hopeless as a valley of dried bones. We can’t, but you can, if we will let you. Help us to let you. We pray then for a work of your Spirit so powerful that when we look back upon it we will know you are God and you did this. For Christ’s sake. Amen.