May 20, 2015: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Ezekiel 37:1-14

37 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. ² He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³ He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” ⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵ Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath^[a] to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶ I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath^[b] in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

⁷ So 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. ⁸ I 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. ⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath:^[c] Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,^[d] and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” ¹⁰ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

¹¹ Then 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.’ ¹² Therefore 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. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴ I 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.”

Reflection:

This is one of those passages that can be hard to figure out the first few hundred times you read it. It is outside the realm of normal experiences for all of us. Dry bones come alive and Ezekiel is prophesied and we can just shake our head and say that was different. The Bible is full of stories of God calling people to do things that defy logic. From telling Noah to build an ark, all the way through telling John to write his dreams in Revelation, we are constantly challenged to think outside of what is normal or possible for us and see what is possible for God. I am not amazed that God could make dry bones come alive, God is God, however, Ezekiel showed the kind of faith I hope to have. The kind of faith that will risk looking silly, ridiculous and foolish because I believe God can do anything and I will follow God wherever I feel God leading, even into the realm of the weird or bizarre.

Reflection Questions

Morning: Have you ever felt God leading you to do something you did not want to do or you where worried would make you look silly?

Afternoon: Is God calling you to do anything today?

Evening: Will you do what God asks, even at the risk of looking ridiculous?