Texts: Romans
8:6-11, Ezekiel 37:1-14
Date: Sunday, March 17, 2002
Author: Rev. Jeffrey T. Barker
It’s official.
The State of Maine is experiencing drought conditions.
The federal government has deemed 15 of the 16 counties to be in drought.
Lack of precipitation over the last 12 months has left wells empty and
lakes far below normal levels. These
dry and desolate conditions will be tested severely during the summer months as
campers light fires and lighting touches dry earth. The potential for wild, uncontrollable fire is very real.
And the warnings are posted everywhere.
Over the last year as we have driven to different places in Maine
especially during the summer season, we have see repeatedly signs warning of the
severe dry, drought-like conditions. Perhaps
you’re familiar with that “Smokey the Bear” sign.
It posts the fire danger index using words like: low, moderate, high,
extreme. We’re ripe for wild, uncontrollable fire to burn everything
in it’s path. It’s dangerous
out there!
For me, hearing of drought conditions takes on a particular scene.
Growing up in the Plains (as a “flatlander”) when I hear the word
drought I see dry and withered corn stalks.
Bean plants brown and brittle. The
ground is as hard as the tile floor in our kitchen.
When the wind blows, dust kicks up and leaves dirt in your mouth.
Dry, desolate, barren. Drought
conditions. And that’s what
we’re experiencing in these days! It’s
dry out there. It’s bone dry!
Ever felt that way? Ever
felt one dry?
The context of our Ezekiel reading this day finds the nation of Israel
experiencing bone dry days! The
Judeans, suffering the fate of exile and estranged from both God and their land,
were in the throes of disorientation. Their
world seemed to be falling apart. Nothing
made sense. They felt abandoned,
alone, and alienated. They were
desolate and hopeless. They were
bone dry!
The vision the prophet Ezekiel encounters is an attempt to convey to the
Israelites the dire straits of their condition.
They are on the verge of death. But
God is not going to revive and renew them for their own sake.
God tells the prophet to speak these words to the house of Israel:
“Thus
says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about
to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the
nations to which you came. I will
sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you
have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says
the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes.
I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries,
and bring you into your own land. I
will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from your
uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you. .
.” (Ezekiel 36:22-26a)
The divine ruach -- the Holy Breath of God -- was about to be
unleashed upon the house of Israel for the sole purpose of revealing the very
holiness of God to all nations. Their
very beings would be cleansed. A
new heart -- a heart of love -- would be given to them.
A new spirit -- the very spirit of God -- would be put within them.
Think of it: a bone dry people would live; but not only live they would
re-present the very holiness of God to all the nations!
This is exactly what Paul is talking about when he writes to the church
at Rome. Notice that he is writing
to a church; a group of people very much like ourselves not a group of idol
worshipping pagans. He’s not writing an editorial in the Rome Press Herald
complaining about how bad people are. This
letter is addressed specifically to a people very much like you and I; a people
who listen to the Word of God; who try to do what is right.
So Paul writes: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal
bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you”
(Romans 8:11).
As Paul writes to the church at Rome he is concerned that they live their
lives enveloped with the divine ruach -- the Holy Breath of God.
In doing so, their lives would be lived not according to the whims of
this world; not according to societal standards, but would reflect the holiness
of God to all the nations. In
substance and essence, their lives would re-present the holiness of God in this
finite world. For this purpose the
Church exists. For this purpose you
and I exist!
This is precisely what Paul means when he speaks of living according to
the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you (Romans 8:9b).
Availing ourselves completely to the cleansing, purifying Spirit of
Christ, we, like the nation of Israel, can be made clean and a new spirit -- the
very Spirit of Christ -- can live, breath, and reside inside our beings.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit of God empowers and energizes our
actions, our attitudes, our behaviors, and our choices.
When the Holy Spirit of God cleanses and fills us we are freed to love as
Christ Himself loves; we are freed to serve as Christ Himself serves; we are
freed to give as Christ Himself gives -- even to the point of death.
For the purpose of our lives is to reveal the holiness of God to all
nations; to all people!
And to reveal the holiness of God to all nations means to live
Christ-like lives to God’s greater glory!
And, friends, you and I know that this is not something you and I can do
in the resources of our own strength and ingenuity!
It takes the power of God himself!
One key symbol of our Christian faith is that of fire.
Fire represents the divine presence of God.
God was in the burning bush at Horeb and called Moses from it. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews writes that “Our
God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).
Fire represents the coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the
people of God. It is drawn
primarily from Acts chapter 2:
“When
the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent
wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on
each of them. All of them were
filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit
gave them ability” (Acts 2:1-4).
Not only does fire represent divine presence, but acts and actions of God
are also symbolized by fire. The
idea of purification is found in numerous places.
Isaiah’s experience of the “live coal. . . laid. . . upon my mouth”
(Is. 6:6-7) symbolized the purging of unclean lips.
The Holy Spirit of God, symbolized by fire, cleanses and purifies our
hearts and beings so that we are freed from life lived according to the whims of
this world; so that we are freed from the societal standards of this world in
order that we may be filled with the very holy love of God Himself.
Fire erupts quickly in dry, desolate conditions.
In such conditions a fire is a powerful force burning and destroying
everything in it’s path. In fact,
at times, such a force is nearly unquenchable!
Such is the Spirit of God! It
is a powerful, enveloping force that forever changes everything in it’s path!
When the Holy Spirit -- the very Spirit of Christ -- envelopes and fills
our hearts, indeed pervades our very being, our lives are completely reoriented
as we begin living according to the Spirit instead of according to the societal
standards of this world. And this
is exactly of what Paul, in our Romans text, warns us.
The Spirit of God comes and reorients us to a new way of living -- life
according to the Spirit of God!
“That was the experience of Frenchmen Blaise Pascal, who sought the
ultimate truth of life through mathematics, physics, and philosophy.
Pascal proved himself to be a genius in each of those fields, yet he had
not found what he was seeking.
He tried religious meditation under a spiritual director.
He studied the Scriptures. He
spent watchful nights in fasting and prayer.
This too seemed to be a dead end. . . until God found him!
Pascal scribbled his thoughts that night on a slip of paper, which he
stitched into the lining of his coat and carried with him to his dying day.
That slip of paper is now preserved in the National Library of Paris.
Translated, Pascal’s note says:
Year
of Grace 1654
FIRE
“God
of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6),
not of philosophers and scholars.
Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ. . .
“My God and Your God” (John 20:17).
“Your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16).
The world forgotten, everything except God. . . .
“O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You”
(John 17:25).
Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. . .
May I never be separated from him.”
(Dennis
F. Kinlaw, The Mind of Christ, p. 31
John Wesley shares a
similar experience. Under the
date of May 24, 1738, John Wesley notes in his Journal: “In the
evening I went very unwillingly to a society on Aldersgate Street, where one
was reading from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which
God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely
warmed. I felt I did trust in
Christ, Christ alone for salvation: and an assurance was given me that he
had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from
the law of sin and death” (Wesley’s
Works, Journal Volume I, p. 103).
FIRE. A heart strangely warmed.
Dry, desolate, barren. Bone
dry. Every felt that way?
That’s okay because I have great news for you!
Your ripe for a wild consuming Spirit -- the very Spirit of Christ -- to
envelope your heart! The Good
News this day is that for something to burn it needs to be dry!
The image; the symbol for the Holy Spirit is fire.
Allow him to consume you life. Allow
him to pervade your very being!
It’s official. The fire
danger index is extreme. We’re
ripe for a wild, uncontrollable fire to consume us!
It’s dangerous in here! For
the Holy Spirit of God desires to cleanse, fill, empower, and energize His
people not for ourselves but for the sole purpose of revealing His holiness to
all the nations. Allow the Holy
Spirit of God to burn brightly in your life!
May
the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may
abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).
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