December 7, 2025

Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus

“Joining the Song of God's Voice"

Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch

December 7, 2025                                                                                                                                Based on Ezekiel 37

When we decided to try out the Narrative lectionary this year, I was so excited to be diving into some different and less well trod texts from the bible. But I’ll be honest, when I started to look at the Advent texts from the Hebrew bible… I was very surprised by what I saw.
Our scripture today is a strange text to be reading in Advent, and certainly not the perfect scripture to pair with the Christmas Anthem our choir has prepared. I mean it’s a valley full of dead, dead dry bones. No manger. No shepherds. No angels. Just dryness, dust, and death.

It’s a macabre scene that maybe is more fitting for the spookiness of Halloween than advent. And yet, maybe Advent, with its insistence on looking at the world’s pain and darkness and trying to seek and find sparks of hope, is the perfect time to look at text like this…

Because Advent isn’t meant to be sentimental. It’s not four weeks of pretending everything is fine until Jesus shows up. Advent is the church refusing to look away from the world’s pain. It is the stubborn, holy practice of hope when hope looks impossible.

In our scripture, the prophet Ezekiel stands in a valley that feels eerily familiar:
Familiar not in reality… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a valley filled end to end with bones…But maybe familiar in metaphor…Because I know I’ve looked at the world and felt disheartened by what I’ve seen…A landscape of exhaustion, despair, and dreams that have crumbled.

But for the people to whom Ezekiel is writing, their exile wasn’t metaphorical. Everything they relied on, community, home, identity, had collapsed. They have experienced death and devastation, saying out loud what many of us whisper internally:

“Our hope is gone. We are cut off. We’re so hopeless it’s like our bones are dried up.”

That is one of the most devastating lines in all of Scripture. It is grief spoken plainly.
It is depression and burnout and heartbreak and injustice named without apology.

And God does not scold them for their despair. God does not tell them to “cheer up” or “look on the bright side.”
God meets them in the valley.

What happens next is not magic. It is not special effects. It is breath.

The Spirit, the Hebrew ruach, meaning breath, wind, spirit, blows across the valley, and the bones begin to rattle and pull toward one another.

And then: God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, to call it forth, to speak the wind into action.

This is God saying: Join me Ezekiel. Use your voice. Add your breath to mine.

Resurrection, in Ezekiel’s world and ours, is a collaboration.

Despair wants to shut us down, quiet us, isolate us.
But hope, hope is something we practice, something we speak, something we sing.

On Music Sunday, that feels especially true.

There are moments in life when spoken words fail, when explanations fall flat, when hope seems too fragile to articulate in prose.

But then someone starts to sing.
And breath becomes something more than survival,it becomes transformation.
I think of something from C. S. Lewis: in The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan, the lion, begins the creation of Narnia by singing. The mountains rise, the stars appear, the trees stretch upward, because the Song brings them to life.

Lewis wasn’t just inventing an image; he was borrowing from Scripture’s deep imagination:
Creation is sung into being. Life is breathed into death. The universe itself responds to music.

And maybe, just maybe, Ezekiel’s valley was filled not only with wind, but with song. With notes that trembled through ribcages and skulls and sinews. With harmonies that coaxed the bones back into belonging.

Because music does that: It finds us in the valley, wraps around our wounds, and carries us until we can stand again.

This morning, as our choir and musicians lead us, they are doing more than offering pretty sounds.
They are practicing resistance.

Every hymn, every chord, every layered harmony says: The valley will not have the last word. Despair does not get to silence us. There is breath enough for resurrection.

When we sing together, especially in a world that feels like a valley, we are joining Ezekiel. We are prophesying to the breath. We are calling life into places we feared were beyond repair.

Our singing becomes a defiant candle in the wind, a small but stubborn act of hope against despair. And God, the One who sings creation into being, meets our breath with holy breath.

Even the Bones Will Rise

At the end of the vision, God says: “I will put my spirit within you, and you will live.”

Not: “You might live.” Or “You could live if you try hard enough.”

But: You will live.

Even here.
Even now.
Even when the valley feels endless.

God’s truth is clear:
Where we see only dead ends, God imagines beginnings.
Where we see only bones, God sees a choir.
Where we see despair, God breathes hope.

So today, let the music carry you.
Let it gather your scattered bones.
Let it fill your lungs.
Let it be your resistance.

Because the God of Ezekiel is still singing.
The breath of the Spirit is still blowing.
And even the bones, even the driest bones you’ve given up on,
will rise again.

Amen.

WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE

PRELUDE                                                                  “Geistliches Wiegenlied”                                         Johannes Brahms

                                                                          (“Sacred Cradle-Song”) from Two Songs, Op. 91

WELCOME                                                                   

One: This is the day that the Lord has made

All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  

*CANDLE LIGHTING                                                             Kya Angle and Lizzy Vologzhanin

Advent is not a season of quiet waiting, but of holy defiance.

To light a candle in the dark is to resist the darkness with hope.

With every small flame we kindle, we say again:

Despair does not get the final word.

(Candle is lit)

Today we light a candle to resist despair.

In a world that feels dry and weary, God breathes life again —

sometimes as wind, sometimes as whisper,

and sometimes as a song rising from tired lungs.

This candle shines for all who need breath restored,

for all who long to feel their bones gather and strengthen,

for all who need a melody of hope to lift them.

This light is a quiet act of rebellion, a flame of holy resistance,

a reminder that even in the valley of dry bones, the song of God is still being sung

and life is already beginning to rise.

*HYMN 100                       “My Soul Cries Out With a Joyful Shout”            CANTICLE OF THE TURNING

WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

SCRIPTURE   Ezekiel 37:1-14  CEB

The Lord’s power overcame me, and while I was in the Lord’s spirit, he led me out and set me down in the middle of a certain valley. It was full of bones. He led me through them all around, and I saw that there were a great many of them on the valley floor, and they were very dry.

He asked me, “Human one, can these bones live again?”

I said, “Lord God, only you know.”

 He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Dry bones, hear the Lord’s word!  The Lord God proclaims to these bones: I am about to put breath in you, and you will live again.  I will put sinews on you, place flesh on you, and cover you with skin. When I put breath in you, and you come to life, you will know that I am the Lord.”

I prophesied just as I was commanded. There was a great noise as I was prophesying, then a great quaking, and the bones came together, bone by bone.  When I looked, suddenly there were sinews on them. The flesh appeared, and then they were covered over with skin. But there was still no breath in them.

 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, human one! Say to the breath, The Lord God proclaims: Come from the four winds, breath! Breathe into these dead bodies and let them live.”

 I prophesied just as he commanded me. When the breath entered them, they came to life and stood on their feet, an extraordinarily large company.

He said to me, “Human one, these bones are the entire house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely finished.’  So now, prophesy and say to them, The Lord God proclaims: I’m opening your graves! I will raise you up from your graves, my people, and I will bring you to Israel’s fertile land. You will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, my people.  I will put my breath in you, and you will live. I will plant you on your fertile land, and you will know that I am the Lord. I’ve spoken, and I will do it. This is what the Lord says.”

One: Holy wisdom, Holy Word,
All: Thanks be to God

HOMILY                                                                                                   Rev. Trip Porch 

ANTHEM                                                                           "Christmas Oratorio"                               Camille Saint-Saëns   1835-1921

                  Soloists: Skye Johnson, Betsy Tullis, Mary Rebekah Fortman, William Hughes, Marlon Haughton

WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD

PASTORAL PRAYER

TIME OF OFFERING   online giving is available at  www. indianolapres.org/give

OFFERTORY                          “Savior of the Nations Come”                           Sondra K. Tucker

                                                                              from Advent Suite for Handbells                            The Chancel Bells                                 

OFFERTORY RESPONSE 79       “Light Dawns on a Weary World” verse 1              TEMPLE OF CHRIST 

*PRAYER OF DEDICATION 

Holy Breath of God, take these gifts and take our lives. Use them to bring hope where there is despair, light where there is weariness, and life where things feel dry and broken. Make us instruments of your healing and your joy. Amen.

*HYMN 82                               “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”                            HYFRYDOL

 TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING

CHARGE & BENEDICTION

POSTLUDE                     “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”                   arr. Sally DeFord

 Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452