Sermon: March 22, 2026

Readings Ezekiel 37:1-14 / John 11:1-45

There are moments in life when it feels like we can’t breathe. Not just physically…but spiritually.

Moments of grief. Loss. Fear. Uncertainty. Moments where it feels like the life has been drained out of us.

In our readings for Sunday, the prophet Ezekiel speaks to a people who are experiencing exactly that. Their world had been shattered. Their city destroyed. Their temple gone. Their identity stripped away. They were a people without hope.

And into that desolation, God gives Ezekiel a vision—a valley filled with dry bones. A place where life seems impossible. And God asks a haunting question: “Mortal… can these bones live?”

That question isn’t just for Ezekiel. It’s for us. Because we all walk through valleys like that. Valleys where hope feels distant…or maybe gone altogether.

Moments where it feels like we can’t breathe. But into that valley—God breathes. Throughout this passage, the Hebrew word ruach is used. It means breath… wind… Spirit. And what God offers is not just air…but life itself.

God’s own Spirit restoring what has been lost. That same breath appears again in the Gospel. Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus. Grief fills the air. Tears fall. And Jesus weeps. But then—standing before death itself—Jesus calls out: “Lazarus… come out.” And life returns.

But then Jesus says something we cannot overlook:

“Unbind him… and let him go.” Jesus gives life— but the community helps people live in that new life.

And that is still our calling. To help unbind one another…from grief…from fear…from shame… and from the things that still bind our world like hatred… prejudice… injustice… anything that tells someone they are less than a child of God.

God breathes His Spirit into us—into each one of you—so that we may walk as children of God and become the love of Christ in the world.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can walk through the valleys of life—no matter how hopeless or desolate they may seem… even when it feels like we can’t breathe.

Because the same breath that filled the valley of dry bones and called Lazarus from the tomb…is still breathing life into the world today.

May we open our hearts to receive that breath—

the breath of God that gives life where hope seems lost,

the breath that calls us out of the tomb, the breath that breathes new life into a broken world—

a world gasping for air and longing for the life-giving breath of God’s love.