We’re just a week away from the start of Holy Week! Ever so slowly, we are drawing closer to the Cross of Good Friday. The bright glow of Easter is not yet on the horizon. We cannot rush it. We have to first journey through the pitch black night of death. And so the 5th Sunday in Lent leads us to the graveyard where we come face-to-face with our greatest fear and most frightful enemy. Here are some Lent 5, Year A sermons that might help as you prepare for preaching this week:

Preaching to the Bones – Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14

The single-most important fundamental of our faith is that Jesus Christ is the Lord of the living and the dead. By him, the dead receive new life, and through faith in him, the living never die.

Today on the fifth Sunday in Lent, we journey on with Jesus. Drawing ever closer to the Cross. Descending deeper still into the darkest shadows of life. Walking with Jesus through Lent is a little bit like visiting the Vietnam War Memorial in our nation’s capitol. Those of you who have experienced The Wall know that, as you walk along, it begins low to the ground, and then rises high, and then returns to its original height. This provocative design, conceived by a Yale architectural student by the name of Maya Lin, represents the way war casualties actually mounted, tapering up from nothing at the beginning of the war, and eventually tapering down to nothing at the end. But in-between, the wall grows. It’s almost as if you’re descending into the valley of death as you walk along. And at the point marking the height of the war, the wall soars above your head and you are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of names etched in the wall. Names of young men and young women who gave their lives for their country.

Lent, too, is like walking into an ever-deepening valley of death. (Full Sermon)

Dese Bones Gonna Rise Agin! – Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14

We are almost in sight of the cross as Lent deepens. As we draw closer to Holy Week, perhaps it seems as if we are standing at a crossroads – the crossroads between life and death.

Or is it between death and life?

Even before Easter comes, God is setting us up to confront the struggle between these two. You can see it way back in Ezekiel 37 when God brings Ezekiel out to the valley of dry bones. Picture it as a sort of killing fields – like the killing fields of Cambodia – strewn with skulls and ribs and shards of human bone. Picture it as a place where there is no sound but for the mournful breeze.

“Can these bones live?” God asks Ezekiel. Ezekiel says he doesn’t know. Only God knows. So God tells Ezekiel to shout to the bones that God is going to make them come to life. And Ezekiel shouts.

And there is rattling sound.

Bones begin to move, attaching themselves one to the other. Ligaments, tendons, muscles appear, giving shape to the skeletons who now stand up and walk about. Flesh begins to form, and skin starts to grow, and human beings appear! Life has been raised up from death!

And God speaks: “These are the whole house of Israel whose bones are dried up, whose hope is gone, who are cut off. O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up…!”

What a joyful word to a nation that had been destroyed by Babylon and dragged off into captivity! There could be no better news than this good news – God would resuscitate their hopes and dreams, and give them their life back! As the old song declares, “Dese bones gona rise again!”

And yet, if you know the story, there were many in the household of Israel in those days who preferred the death of captivity to the new life of freedom.

Sometimes we human beings choose death over life. (Full Sermon)

The Spirit in You – Text: Romans 8:6-11

I wonder what the disciples were feeling as they journeyed with Jesus toward Jerusalem? He was talking openly now about what would happen there, and it wasn’t good news. The Son of Man, he said, would be delivered into the hands of people who considered him a threat. They would condemn him as deserving execution. And they would carry out the judgment. Jesus spoke openly to them about his impending death.

They didn’t want to hear such talk, of course, any more than you and I want to engage in that kind of conversation when it drifts into our lives. Death is not an easy subject to deal with, let alone when the person at the center of the conversation is yourself, or someone you love.

I wonder how they felt?

The Gospels tell us that the disciples tried their best to change the subject, and when that failed, to urge Jesus to not be so morose and to think happy thoughts instead. “Heaven forbid that anything like that should happen to you, Lord!” they said.

But Jesus knew the score and would not back off. “We’re going to Jerusalem, and there, I will be rejected and killed.”

Like the disciples, most of us would probably prefer a Christianity without a cross – without a crucifixion – without a death. If only we could get to the joy of Easter Sunday without having to pass through the agonizing sorrow of Good Friday! If only we could have a glorious risen Christ without a crucified, dead and buried Jesus.

But we cannot. At the very center of our faith is a death.

Why do you suppose that is? (Full Sermon)