In the Tomb?

Psalm 130
¹Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
²LORD, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
³If you, O LORD, could see the wrongs that have been done LORD, who could stand?
⁴But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
⁵I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
⁶my soul waits for the LORD more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.
⁷O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him there is plenteous redemption.
⁸It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

I do not know about you, but this social distancing and stay at home order is making me feel  isolated. Of course, I am not alone – I am staying at home with my family and I go out once a day to check on the church building, and pick up the mail. But, I did that every day in that old, normal time. While I, like many of you, am keeping touch electronically, I miss true personal contact.  Yes, count me old-fashioned, I would prefer to spend time in the presence of others and not “on line” with them. Of course our self-isolation is not some arbitrary thing foisted upon us by some authoritarian figure. It is a needed response to slow the COVID-19 pandemic and save lives. We know that, but it still makes us feel as if we are Mary or Martha and have lost an important part of our life; or even feel that we are in the tomb with Lazarus.

We are social people, even the most introvert of us. God made us to live in community, to share our lives with each other, and to worship together. And now we sit at home, watch too much television, eat too many snacks, and drink too much coffee (or, at least, I do). The question is, “Will these bones live again, O Lord?” Or, at least, when will it get back to what it used to be? While it was a completely different time and about a much different situation, Ezekiel was assuring the Israelites that someday the Babylonian exile would end and they would return to the promised land. For those bones were them, a people scattered and dried out by the ways and worries and machinations of the world. Ground up between great world powers they were just dried up has-beens. But the end was not the Babylonians, just as it is not COVID-19. We too will live a new life and these dry bones will see a new dawn. And that life, although it may bring other struggles, will be a new life that will show God’s love and law – God’s life and salvation. That life Paul reminds us of in Romans. Life that comes to us through the Spirit of God. Life to our mortal bodies through God’s Spirit.

Yes, like Martha and Mary we are at a loss of what to do next since our whole way of life has been disrupted by fear and death. Like Lazarus we have been lying in the tomb of COVID-19 questioning why God would allow this, did Jesus delay in coming to our help, or what have we done to deserve this? But it is in the midst of this crisis, as we lie here frozen, unable to act, Jesus calls us, “Come out.” Called out of our tomb, no longer fearing, we turn our sadness into joy, our fear into hope, our death into life. Yes, our Lord and savior does know the wrongs done and out of his tomb has brought us life ever renewed – ever eternal.