Ezekiel 37:1-14
New Life for Dry Bones
When I became a “new cadet,” in basic training at West Point, I had to memorize various items and be willing to recount them at will. One was a paragraph from the 1962 speech of retired 82-year-old General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to the Corps of Cadets, in accepting the coveted Thayer Award. The paragraph goes like this: “Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.”
Did you catch that last phrase? “To create hope when hope becomes forlorn.” We all have those moments in life when “hope becomes forlorn,” when all seems lost, when we do not know how to keep going. MacArthur challenges the Soldier to find hope in duty, honor, and country. For the Christian believer, we can go even higher, to God. Today’s story offers hope for the hopeless, life from death.
Ezekiel’s prophecy is apocalyptic in nature. The word “apocalypse” is Greek for uncovering or revealing. In apocalyptic writings, the prophet of God experiences a vision and helps interpret it for God’s people. So even today we can ask, “What is God saying to us through this vision?”
Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones, and God had him prophesy to them until they came to life. When God gave this vision to Ezekiel, the Israelites had been and living in captivity under Babylonian rule for ten long years. They were taken to foreign lands, away from their homes, their jobs, their loved ones, to work as slave labor in another country. Through Ezekiel’s vision God let his people know that he knew of their plight and that he would indeed “bring them back to life,” that he would rescue them from their captors.
God fulfilled these visions in part in 538 BC, some years later, when he softened the heart of the Persian King Cyrus to allow the refugees to begin returning home. You’ll find these events in the first two chapters of the book of Ezra. Ezekiel’s visions gave the Israelites hope to hang on when there seemed to be little cause for hope. And they can do the same for us. Please consider these points. First,
1. When we are out of hope, God knows the future (verses 1-3). Ezekiel sees a bunch of very dry bones scattered across the valley, likely the site of a terrible battle. The descriptive words “very dry” tell us these people have been dead for a long time. In other words, they have no hope. They are out of options. But fortunately for them, God is not. In fact, God is just getting started. God asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” Now if anybody else besides God asked that question, you would say, “Of course not! There is no possible way they could live again.” But it’s not anybody else asking the question. It’s God. So Ezekiel wisely replies, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
We’ve talked about this word “sovereign” before. In today’s passage, Ezekiel uses it to describe God, and God uses it to describe himself. It means, “God is large and in charge.” God is in control. Nothing happens without God’s knowledge nor even his permission. And no matter how evil it is, God can use it for his perfect plan.
When you find yourself at the end of the rope, take heart; you are ripe for a miracle! Your Sovereign God is just getting started! Instead of looking down in defeat, look up to the heavens, for your redemption is near.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the classic trilogy, “Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien was a strong Catholic believer who had the honor of leading to the Lord his friend and colleague C.S. Lewis. Tolkien’s trilogy contains strong themes of good and evil. And one epic character of good was the Christ-like Gandalf the Great. Towards the end of the second book, “The Twin Towers,” the good guys are losing miserably in a battle for the Keep at Helm’s Deep. When all hope seems lost, they recall Gandalf’s words a week previous: “Look to my coming, at first light, on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the East.” As the sun dawns on the battlefield, they look up and see him glowing white, along with a large army of friendlies coming to their rescue from the east. When all hope was lost, new hope was gained.
Civil Rights Activist Ralph Abernathy first coined the popular statement, “I don't know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future.” When you are out of hope, give your future to God. Take your problem to God and say with Ezekiel, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” And there’s another thing we can learn from Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones:
2. When God comes through, we get to know God better (vv. 4-6). When you bring your despair, your depression, your dead-end situation to God, God reveals more of who he is. It reminds me of the old story of the fellow that was standing too close to the edge of a cliff, and suddenly, the ground gives away and he finds himself falling off the edge! As he starts to plummet down, he manages to reach out and grab hold of a scrawny tree limb sticking out of the face of the cliff. He yells, “Help! Is there anyone up there that can help me?” Now he hears this deep voice say, “I’m here. I can help you.” He says, “Who is that?” The voice replies, “I’m God, and I can help you.” The guy says, “Yes, please help me! I’m about to die!” God replies, “Son, I’ve got you. Just let go of the branch.” The guy thinks for a minute and then says, “Is there anyone else up there?”
That could be us, right? We don’t really want to trust God. We think we know our future better than him. But when we finally do, we get to know God in a whole new way. We discover a God who can do the impossible, who can surprise us with outcomes beyond our understanding, like bringing dead bones back to life. As the angel told the virgin Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). As Mary trusted in the God who sent the angel, Mary learned more of who God is.
In the story today, God gives Ezekiel a role. Ezekiel gets to participate in this miracle. As he prophesies, God adds tendons and flesh and skin, and then God adds something even very precious: his own breath. He says to the bones, in verse 6, “I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.” It reminds me of the creation account in Genesis. God formed the first human from the dust of the ground. And when he was done, then God breathed life into the man. God gave him his first breath, just as God does here with Ezekiel’s bones in the desert. And then notice what God promises. He says, “Then you will know that I am the LORD.” The word for “LORD” there is Yahweh. God is saying, “Then you will know the one true covenant God of Israel.”
When God does a miracle, that’s when we get to know him as our God, the God who always keeps his promises. When God brought his people through the Red Sea, that’s when they knew he was God. When God surrounded Elisha and his servant with a heavenly army and delivered them from an attacking force, that’s when they knew he was God. When God put a baby in Mary’s womb, she knew God in a whole new way. And when God delivers you and me from our hopelessness and despair, that’s when we really get to know God.
C.S. Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” [Review] When we are out of hope, God knows the future. When God comes through, we get to know God better. And there is one last lesson:
3. When God puts his Spirit in us, we live forever (v. 14). When it says God “breathed” into these bodies, that word for “breath” is the same Hebrew word for “spirit.” God breathed his Spirit into these bodies and brought them to life.
Through Ezekiel’s prophecy, God was promising the Israelites that he would restore them as a nation, but even more, he would restore them spiritually. He would give them eternal life as they trusted in him. And that’s what is promised the nation of Israel in Revelation, as the entire nation puts its faith in Christ.
The apostle Paul described the same process for us Christian believers: God breathes his Spirit in us the moment we trust our lives to Christ Jesus. Paul wrote, in Romans 8:10-11, “If Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” Paul promises here that God has a bodily resurrection in store for us. Yes, these earthly bodies will die. Yet, because we have the breath of God, God’s Spirit within us, we will never die. Our Spirit lives on at the moment of physical death, to be rejoined to a resurrection body someday. Other scriptures describe these resurrection bodies, bodies like that of the risen Lord, bodies that can eat, that can recognize each other, but that will never age or decay.
Jesus gave a preview when he resurrected Lazarus from certain death after four days in the tomb. And then, when God raised Jesus from the dead on that first Easter morn, Jesus became the first human being to receive a permanent resurrected body. Poor Lazarus would have to die a second time. Can you imagine having to die twice? But Jesus would never die again. And we won’t either as we put our faith in him. Listen to what he promised Lazarus’ sister. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
Today, as we prepare to take the Lord’s Supper, we remember Jesus’ death and resurrection. We remember that his death paid for all of our sin, so that we could be made one, we could be reconciled with God. All God says we need to do is trust in him. Trust that he can bring hope where there is no hope. Trust that God can bring life to dry bones. Let us pray:
Lord, we come to your Communion table knowing we are in desperate need of hope. Sometimes we find ourselves down, not sure where to turn, sometimes ready to give up in frustration. And we need a reminder of a valley full of bones. We need to hear about a God who can turn around an impossible situation, who can bring hope where there is no hope. Help us to trust in you, to know that through our risen Lord Jesus, all things are possible, as we follow you. Help someone today to trust you with their life for the very first time. And all of God’s people said, “Amen!”
