Dry Bones

I have a skeleton made of styrofoam. I don’t remember where I got it, but it’s fun to bring it out for Halloween or when looking at Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. This past Sunday was the perfect day to lay the bones out at the front of the church.

We have an interesting relationship with death and skeletons in our culture. Despite being less and less people of any faith as a society, there can be an obsession with gore and the end of life. People reading this story today from Ezekiel 37 would probably love it and want to see it made into a movie with special effects.

For those of us in the church, many of us struggling with where we’re going. As we grapple with continued fallout of Covid and decline in attendance, there are some important things that happen in this story that are worth paying attention to.

First, the mass of bones are extremely dry and parched from being in the sun. There is no marrow or life left. And yet God asks the question “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel is very wise and says “Only you know, God.”

How many of us are standing looking out over a valley of what seems dry bones in front of us - both the loss of many dear to us and our congregation, and of those who remain loss of zest for faith and life that has been sapped by the hits that just seem to keep on coming. We’re weary and many of us getting ready to snap. We may be asking the same question - “Can these bones live?” And if we’re wise, we will answer the same as Ezekiel - “Only God knows.”

And because only God knows, it means that what looks beyond help or possibility, an absolute dead end, may not be. Because God knows and God can do the seemingly impossible. God knows the plans in place for us and the dreams yet to be lived out. God knows the congregation that is on its last legs and looking to die gracefully to find liberation and peace in resurrection. God knows the congregation that with some breath can be revived and able to thrive and flourish. God knows.

We need to acknowledge the state of our own bones as well as the state of those we serve. Have we, in our worry and busyness and trying to do it on our own strength, run out of gas? Have we allowed the Spirit’s own energy and vitality to ebb away from us, leaving us dry and parched? Have we modeled an existence focused on mere survival rather than absolute trust in God to carry and guide us, despite how long it all seems to be taking?

We need good bones. We need bones that are fortified and that won’t be brittle and snap under pressure or stress. We need to recognize when we are getting close to that place of giving up and not believing that Christ can and will replenish us. We need to know the things to do to plug into the Life that comes from Him.

Only God knows what will happen. Only God sees the potential that we often miss when we are writing off tiny congregations or those who don’t seem confident or those who seem to have given up. Only God sees the coming outcome of selfishness or selflessness, of making effort to connect to the Source that sustains us or relying only on ourselves.

So what should our prayer be over these dry bones? What should we prophesy to them, these ones seemingly without hope? Because God hasn’t given up on them, we shouldn’t either until it is clear that the release to something beyond is greater and best. Perhaps our best words to them are a reminder of the tender love of God for them - the promise to restore them, to fill them with the Spirit and give them a home. That home may be in this world or the next, but there is a home God will provide for them.

Will you prophesy to a church in angst, whose bones are dry and whose people need hope? I pray that even as people question God’s provision in a weary land that I can keep speaking words of hope that will in time encourage them to stand up, strengthen their muscles and receive the very sustaining breath of God.

May we all truly live because God’s words have been spoken over us.