A Holy Spirit Revival

"The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones" by Gustave Dore

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“And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:13-14).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Admittedly, I chose the title “A Holy Spirit Revival” to be provocative. It is not a term we Lutherans would generally use because of the negative associations with the charismatic movement, altar calls, decision theology, and speaking in tongues. Many Pentecostal, Baptist, and American Evangelical churches describe a Holy Spirit revival as a powerful movement of God’s Spirit that brings spiritual awakening and renewal to individuals, communities, and the church. And while that definition can be true, we need to go deeper.

The word “revival” traces its origins to the mid-17th century. It derives from the combination of “revive,” meaning to bring back to life or renew, and the suffix “-al,” which indicates an action or process. The Latin roots of “revive” are “re-” (again) and “vivere” (to live). This concept of restoration and rejuvenation is central to the meaning of “revive.” As the word evolved through Old French and Middle English, it maintained its core sense of bringing something back to life, infusing it with new energy or vitality.

Initially, “revival” referred to the act of reviving something after a decline or period of inactivity. By the 18th century, it gained a specific religious connotation, denoting a renewed and intense interest in religion or evangelistic meetings. (Merriam Webster, Good Words). Our Lutheran Confessions condemn such practices because they teach that people should seek God outside of His Word, looking instead to their inner feelings, thoughts, and other so-called spiritual experiences. Luther called them enthusiasts or Schwarmer (a German word for the buzzing of bees) and insisted on the biblical view of God’s mercy and grace, which comes by the external, objective, and outward Word of God. In the Smalcald Articles, Part III, Article VIII, 10, Luther makes this critical point, “God does not wish to deal with us in any other way than through the spoken Word and Sacraments.”

This is how God the Holy Spirit works in our Old Testament, Second Reading, and Gospel for today. Even though we have all the excitement of miraculous occurrences, it is still the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God that produces faith and life. So, it is fair to say that in each of today’s readings, we have either the promise or fulfillment of a Holy Spirit revival.

Today is the Festival of Pentecost, and we celebrate what we confess in the Divine Service when we repeat these words of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. The very Spirit of the Lord who hovered over the face of the waters, bringing creation out of chaos as God spoke the universe into existence, is the same Spirit that Jesus calls the Comforter or Helper, whom He breathed on His disciples on the evening of resurrection Sunday, giving them joy and peace in the forgiveness of their sins. He is the same Spirit poured out fifty days later to Jews from every nation, bringing them to repentance and faith in the crucified and risen Savior.

On that first Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out, with wind and flame and the miracle of the apostles preaching in languages they’d never learned. But as Peter preached, he invited the people not to wait around for a similar miracle. Instead, he pointed them to where they (and every generation since) may receive the Holy Spirit no less powerfully than the apostle had: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord calls to Himself” (Acts 2:38-39).

No less than three thousand people took the plunge that day. Adults and children got into the baptismal water. There, they received the same Spirit that had fallen on the disciples earlier, as they were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And through preaching and Baptism, the Father creates a new Israel for Himself, as those who were so dead in trespasses and sins that they killed their Christ by nailing Him to a tree are brought to life in His name.

Our Old Testament Reading for this Pentecost Sunday shows us how the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. Our text for today is a vision that reminds everyone that God not only gives life but also restores life. In Him, death will not have the last word, even when life has been taken away. Our God is the God of resurrection life. He is life’s origin, restoration. This is the perfect reading to preach for Pentecost. Life is given by the Word of God, which the Spirit uses to bring the dead back to life again. That includes the spiritually dead.

The faith of the child of God is constantly threatened by two opposite dangers: overconfidence and despair. God’s message in Ezekiel 37 is addressed to the second of these dangers. In the previous chapter, God had assured His prophet that the exiles now in Babylon were not forever gone, but that “they will soon come home” (Ezekiel 36:8). God’s people were so depressed by their situation, however, that they found it difficult to believe God’s promise. They said: “Our hope is gone; we are cut off” (Ezekiel 37:11). To reassure His people, God granted Ezekiel a remarkable vision: the vision of the valley of dry bones.

The reading opens with Ezekiel being brought by the Spirit of God to a valley full of dry bones. The bones are the remains of God’s rebellious people whom He has left for destruction on account of their sins. “Can these bones live?” God asks Ezekiel, challenging the prophet and all who have ever looked into the face of death and calling for a response. Ezekiel answers, “O Lord God, you know” (verse 3b).

Ezekiel’s reply is appropriately deferential. It would have been ridiculous and laughable if another human being asked the question. But with God as the questioner, Ezekiel can only plead human ignorance and impotence versus divine omniscience and omnipotence.

Ezekiel’s reply tells us very little about how much he (or believing Israel in general) knew at this time about “the resurrection of the body” and “the life everlasting.” But it does provide us with a minimum that must be accepted before we attempt to enlarge the picture.

First, Ezekiel does not dismiss the possibility of resurrection out of hand. That God, the Creator of life, is Lord over both life and death is implicit in the Old Testament from the outset, even when nothing explicit is said about the relation of the two. As early as Numbers 27:16, we meet the description of the Lord as “the God of the spirits of all flesh.” And Ezekiel would have been aware of the resuscitations of dead people by Elijah (1 Kings 17:17-24) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:18-37), even as the result of a corpse touching Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:21). But all those involved recent deaths, of people whose bodies had only begun to decay, and whose bones were far from being “very dry” (Ezekiel 37:2). So this is something entirely different. Ezekiel can do no more than refer the question back to God.

The Lord tells Ezekiel, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:4-6).

Ezekiel prophesied to lifeless bones at the Lord's command, and a miracle happened! There was a rattling noise as bone came together with bone. To Ezekiel, the valley seemed no longer full of disconnected bones but skeletons.

God’s miracle continued, “There were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them” (Ezekiel 37:8). As Ezekiel watched in amazement, the divine words of the prophecy were effective. The scattered, bleached bones were reconstituted into human bodies. But there is no breath (or spirit) in them. All Ezekiel accomplished so far was to make bodies or corpses without “spirit” or “breath” in them; they remain lifeless. Now, the valley resembled a battlefield littered with corpses.

But God’s miracle was still not over. So Yahweh commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to “the wind,” which shall come from all four “winds” (directions) and by the power of the “Spirit” become the “breath” of life. All four words—spirit, Spirit, wind, breath—are the same Hebrew word ruach. This scene is modeled after the creation narrative of Genesis 2. The lump of clay that Yahweh had molded did not become a living being until God “breathed, blew” the “breath of life.” Yet this is not a first creation of natural life, but a new creation, a revival, as will be made clear by the gift of “My Spirit” in Ezekiel 37:14, hence akin to the rebirth by the Spirit in John 3:3-8; Titus 3:5-6.

God interpreted for Ezekiel what had just transpired in this parabolic vision. The bones are the whole house of Israel, clean, cut off, and without hope. The entire house of Israel had been overcome and butchered by her enemies. They were dead under God’s judgment and wrath. Life without the Spirit is death.

As it was for Israel, so it is for you. Where human beings go their own way, there is only death. Recall the Garden of Eden. God’s solemn word to Adam proved true: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Through Adam’s sin, we also inherit his death (Romans 5:12). We know it’s true. We’ve lost loved ones, and we can’t avoid that our day is coming. So humanity is reduced to an army of spiritual skeletons far more vast than Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, for the whole world is rendered dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3). Without the Lord and Giver of Life, we are left dead in our sins. The outcome of this death is hell itself.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:23).

Ezekiel’s preaching to this dead congregation does what the Lord promises. Graves are opened, and the dead live, restored to the land of Israel. Through God’s opening their graves and bestowing on them the gift of resurrection amid utter hopelessness, the dead will know their God; they will know that He is the Lord, for He will put His Spirit within them and locate them in their land.

Where the Lord’s Word is, His Spirit gives life in His name. There is life even in the Valley of Dry Bones—in the death of Christ. There is an old Reformation altarpiece that depicts the cross of Christ erected over Adam’s skull with blood dripping down on the cranium. The artist wanted to portray the truth that the blood of Christ brings life to Adam and his descendants. This, of course, is the Gospel. Christ shed His blood to redeem us from sin, to rescue us from the devil, and to restore/revive us to life with God.

Where Christ’s promises are trusted, sinners have what they declare: forgiveness, life, and salvation. Faith comes through the hearing of Christ’s Word (Romans 10:17). Ezekiel’s words carried the Spirit, who brought life to the corpses. Jesus’ words are “spirit and life” (John 6:63), and these words bring life to you in the forgiveness of sins. The absolution carries within it the power of the resurrection of the dead, a revival of body and soul.

The Spirit brings you to life with God now and forever (Ezekiel 37:12-14). Ezekiel’s Spirit-filled words brought bones to life. But Jesus’ words of “spirit and life” do something even more extraordinary. God used Ezekiel to do the impossible: through his preaching, the Spirit worked to restore Israel to life. God uses Jesus’ words—the words proclaimed into your ears even as you hear this sermon—to give you eternal life.

Every Baptism in the name of the triune God and every Gospel-delivering sermon continues Pentecost. God’s Word and Spirit cannot be separated. The Spirit works through the Word to bring sinners to faith, to revive life in those who were dead in [their] transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

The miracle of Ezekiel’s vision was magnified on that first Pentecost, and it continues in our midst today as God pours out the Spirit, who brings Christ to us and us to Christ in the waters of Holy Baptism. Here is a new creation—a Holy Spirit Revival.

From Luther’s catechism, we learned that we cannot believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, or come to Him by our own reason or strength, but the Holy Spirit has called us by the Gospel. No more than dried-out bones could pull themselves together and regain life could we walk out of the living death of sin into the impossible. He has brought you to faith in Christ Jesus. That’s why we celebrate Pentecost as the culmination of Easter.

So we say it once more, “Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! It is His resurrection life that the Lord and Giver of Life bestow on you, calling nonexistent faith into being, reviving you so that you might have life with the Father now and forever. Amen

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.