By Corie Steinke, associate director of community life
Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NRSV)
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones
Them bones, them bones, them dry bones
Now hear the Word of the Lord.
Most of us use the tune of this song to teach children about the human skeletal system. Perhaps I’m the only one but I never made the connection between that song and this passage from Ezekiel until writing this devotional. Piece by piece, we connect the toe bone to the foot bone to the ankle bone until we recreate a fully formed person.
I try to imagine what the Valley of the Dry Bones looked like. I picture it as a dark and dusty place, not unlike the elephant graveyard in The Lion King. It is not a place where the light touches. I also think about what Ezekiel must have really thought when God told him to command those dry bones to rise and be new with a breath of life in God. Personally, I think I would have thought, “Sorry God, but there’s no resurrecting these dry bones.” But Ezekiel did it anyway and those dry bones heard the Word of the Lord through Ezekiel and rose to life again and again and again until there was “a vast army.”
How terrifying it must be to live in our own Valley of the Dry Bones. We all have hurts, hang ups and a need to be healed. There are seasons of darkness and seasons of dryness. We all experience them, and we walk with others who experience them. But even in adversity and in times of dry bones there is still hope. There is still the hope in God’s promise that we will live eternally. When that time comes that the breath of God breathes in us we will know that God is who God promises to be. God does not punish for the sake of punishing. God restores us to the perfect image we were created to be. Even in times of struggle and loss, our bones will live.
Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NRSV)
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on 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.” 7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.