RESURRECTION

In Ezekiel 37 we are given incredible imagery. Ezekiel finds himself standing in a valley filled with dry bones. These bones were not those of lives lived in the comfort of home, but bodies who died in exile, far from the life that they knew. While standing in this valley, God asks Ezekiel “Can these bones live?” Looking around, there are absolutely no signs of life. What were once human lives have become just dry bones. What had been a community has become some type of archeological dig.

Then God talks to the prophet again. Ezekiel is now tasked with telling these bones to come to life. They are to be covered with sinew, muscle, and flesh. It’s a resurrection of an entire community. Will Ezekiel say these words? He must call out resurrection against everything that he sees around him. This requires great imagination and courage.

Thankfully I’ve never found myself in a valley of dry bones. I don’t think I would be as calm as Ezekiel was. I tend to get nervous around bone in chicken. Even so, this passage has something to teach me about resurrection.

Walter Brueggemann says that “’exile’ means to be in a place where one’s dreams are mocked, one’s convictions devalued, and one must live without a sense of belonging.” This definition awakens a few questions that are worth are attention.

When you have shared your dreams in the past, what has been the response? What dreams do you keep alive? What dreams have died or been lost over time?

Have you found your convictions to be honored? Have you found your convictions have changed as you have grown? Have you found they changed because of neglect?

Do you find yourself belonging with the people around you? Are you able to live as your true self within a community who loves you?

For some of us these things are absent. For some of us they are not just absent but dead, lacking the sinew and flesh that once kept those dreams, convictions, and belonging alive. We have settled for substitutes. In this season of resurrection I have to wonder if maybe we don’t have to settle.

If you read this aware that some of once was alive resembles dry bones, I want to ask you a question. What would life look like if your dreams, convictions and belonging were resurrected within you? In this resurrection season you are invited courageously imagine the sinews and flesh of your spiritual life being restored. May you return from exile to home. May you experience resurrection from dry bones to life.