Dry Bones, Hear the Word of the Lord
Today is Pentecost Sunday. Today of all days we focus on the who and the what of the Holy Spirit. To do that, I’d like to share with you some words from Ezekiel, going back 700 years before the Holy Spirit was specially poured out on Jesus’ disciples 10 days after his ascension to show you the work that the Holy Spirit always has and continues to do. This is what Ezekiel wrote:
1 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
It’s an impossible story, isn’t it? A fantastical, illogical, nonsensical story. But it tells us so much about the Spirit of our God.
It starts in the “valley of dry bones.” Ezekiel says that he was brought there “by the Spirit of the Lord,” which is another way to say that God had given him a special revelation, i.e. a vision. In this vision, he’s in a valley. That’s normally where you find life. That’s where the water goes. Even in a desert, a valley might house a stream and all along it there will be life and growth.
But not this valley. This one was full of bones, i.e. dry bones – bones, Ezekiel says, that were very dry, the aftermath of some ancient battle maybe that were too many or too mangled to bother to bury.
God led Ezekiel back and forth among them, and then he told Ezekiel to do the most ridiculous, absurd thing. He said, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.’”[1]
Bones don’t have ears; they can’t hear. Bones don’t have lungs; they can’t breathe. Bones can’t be made to live again. They’re bones! They’re what’s left after all the soft stuff wastes away long after the person those bones belonged to dies.
And yet, while Ezekiel was still speaking, he heard a noise, a rattling sound, and he saw the impossible taking place before his very eyes. The bones were coming together, bone to bone.[2] It was like a legion of leprechauns was assembling the skeletons that had been scattered across the valley. But not even mythical leprechauns could do what happened next.
Ezekiel says, “I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them.”[3] It was like God had hit rewind on the process of decomposition. Muscle and skin that had long ago wasted away were now being weaved back into place. It’s one thing to assemble bones that were already there; anyone of us could do that. It’s another thing entirely to create organs and tendons out of nothing.
But that’s exactly what God did! And he wasn’t even done! At this point, even with bone, tendon, muscle, skin – with all the necessities for life in place – those bodies were still lifeless corpses lying on the ground… until God breathed into them and they sprang to life and stood on their feet.
God answered his own question. “Son of man, can these bones live?”[4] Evidently, they could.
Unbelievable, right? Maybe not for Ezekiel. When God asked him this question, Ezekiel didn’t deny it; he didn’t scoff and roll his eyes at God as if he were being silly. Ezekiel deferred to the Sovereign Lord, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”[5] If the Lord Almighty wanted to bring those bones back to life, he could do it, and Ezekiel knew it.
God had done it before! God made Adam out of dry, lifeless material in the Garden of Eden. “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”[6]
God has even made bones into bodies before. On the same day that God made Adam, just a little bit later, “he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man.”[7] That’s how God made Eve!
You drop me in a valley of dry bones and ask if they can live, I’d laugh in your face. But the Lord Almighty can do it. He has done it! God gives life to the lifeless. He made Adam and Eve out of dust and bone. He rattled together skeletons and clothed them with flesh; he breathed life into them in Ezekiel’s vision. And that’s not just a history lesson about the origin of the world or a strange revelation God gave to a prophet 3,000 years ago. It’s the reality today too.
You see, God didn’t drop Ezekiel out in that valley by his Holy Spirit just to show off his almighty power. He did it to say something about his love for his people.
God himself explains, “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’”[8]
What you need to know is that Ezekiel’s original audience was a group of captive exiles – prisoners of war who had been hauled off to Babylon. They were a people who felt as good as dead. The land God had promised to their ancestors had been conquered and taken over, and they had been taken many miles – and a vast, dry desert – away from their ancestral home. The temple that Solomon had built to God’s everlasting glory had been razed to the ground, stripped of all its beauty, and gutted of all its gold. That’s how the people felt too.
But that’s why God made this promise through Ezekiel, “I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”[9] No matter how dry their bones felt, no matter how hopeless or desperate their situation, God promised restoration. He would bring them back to Israel. He would rebuild his temple. He would restore them to their ancestral home and restore in them their hope in God. It’d feel as if they were raised from the dead and had a whole new lease on life.
And that’s exactly what God did. Within 70 years many of those same people who heard these words from Ezekiel’s own lips, were blessed to see God keep his promise, and were able to return home, just as God said.
It’s a fine story, isn’t it? And if you were one of those Jews, I’m sure it would mean the world to you. But that was 3,000 years ago, and it was a message meant for Jewish prisoners of war. I don’t know who’s tuning in today, but I’d guess there aren’t many who are in that situation. So, what does this have to do with you?
Maybe more than you’d think.
It’s important for you to know that God kept his promise and returned these Jewish exiles to the land he had promised them, because there was another promise connected to that land and to the people who would live there. From those Jewish exiles there was one who was promised to bring life – not to a valley of dry bones, but – to the whole world. There was a Saviour who still needed to be born in that land – in Bethlehem in Judea, just as God had promised. There was a Saviour who still needed to die on a cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem to save you from your sins, i.e. to bring life to your dry bones.
That’s how God describes you: You were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world... All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.[10]
We were all dead in sin. We were born into it. We were ruled by it. It’s all we knew. From the moment we came home from the hospital, we were crying when we didn’t get our way. We still cry when we don’t get our way today, or worse, we curse and we fight, we blame and belittle each other. We break all of God’s commands and demonstrate every day that without him we’re nothing but a lifeless sack of bones. We have everything necessary for life; we have every resource and talent and treasure that could be used to God’s glory, but unless he breathes into us and gives us life, we can’t stand on our own two feet. We may as well be the skeletons scattered across the valley floor of Ezekiel 37.
But God has breathed into you the breath of life. He’s given us his Spirit through the proclamation of his Word. Think about how those bones came to life in Ezekiel’s vision. God commanded Ezekiel to do the absurd – to prophesy, to proclaim God’s Word to them, and although they had no power to do anything on their own – to respond in any way – God’s powerful Word brought them to life.
God does the absurd for you too. You and I were dead in our transgressions and sins. By nature, we were hostile to God; we did not and we could not obey him, even if we wanted to. But he loved your lifeless bones, and as Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 2: Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.[11]
God forgave your sins – the things that made you as good as dead – by sending his Son to his death for you. God swapped his sinless Son for sinful humanity, so that you and I could live. God made you alive through the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus 2,000 years ago.
And the way that he makes that life yours today is just as absurd as what he told Ezekiel to do in the valley of the dry bones. God sent someone, like Ezekiel, to proclaim a Word to you. To speak the Word of God to you, and that’s how God breathed life into you. God sent someone to prophesy. Pastors do it every Sunday. Parents, God-willing, do it every day for their children. Friends and spouses can prophesy to each other by reading and reminding each other of God’s Word.
And that’s so important because that’s where the Spirit works. The Spirit is the breath of God that fills our lungs of faith every time we hear God’s Word, just like the breath of God filled those lifeless bodies in Ezekiel’s vision. That’s the Spirit’s work.
And the Holy Spirit is still at work through God’s Word today. He’s still at work in your hearts right now. That’s God’s promise to you. That’s the assurance you can have even when you feel dry and withered, cut off and hopeless. Whether it’s your own sin that burdens you with a guilt you cannot shake or the hopelessness of your situation in life, the Holy Spirit comes and speaks a word about Christ, the sacrifice who took your sin and guilt away; he speaks a word about Christ, your Saviour from death, and the power of the devil.
Maybe you’re not a prisoner of war longing to return to your ancestral home. Maybe you’re just tired and afraid; you’re weak and worried. The Holy Spirit speaks to you through God’s Word and reminds you of God’s love. The Holy Spirit speaks to you through God’s Word and fills you with peace and hope. It’s in God’s Word where our lifeless bones find everlasting life through the work of God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts.
The Spirit is mysterious. We don’t talk about him nearly as often as we should. But today of all days, we see his power to give life to the lifeless and to show love to his people through his Word. Come, Holy Spirit. Speak in our hearts of your everlasting love for us today and every day, through the proclamation of your Word. Amen.
[1] Ezekiel 37:4,5
[2] Ezekiel 37:7
[3] Ezekiel 37:8
[4] Ezekiel 37:3
[5] Ibid
[6] Genesis 2:7
[7] Genesis 2:21,22
[8] Ezekiel 37:11
[9] Ezekiel 37:12
[10] Ephesians 2:1-3
[11] Ephesians 2:4