God Restores Our Hope, Even in Valleys of Dry Bones
Willie was a slightly gruff little old man. A no-nonsense hard-working army veteran with a passion for learning, a witty remark for almost everything, and, a purpose.
Willie and his wife, Earlene, enjoyed a comfortable life in a modest home. They were active in their church community, and they loved each other very much.
The day Earlene was memorialized and returned to the earth after an arduous battle with cancer, Willie lost his identity as a caregiver.
The loss of identity is one of the hardest crises in life. Losing identity and purpose makes it hard to determine where you fit in your own life when so many things are being taken away.
Each experience that we have in life creates different emotions within us and makes us feel different things. Good experiences create within us a sense of joy. On the contrary, bad experiences, like the experience of loss feels a lot like despair or loneliness.
For Ezekiel and the people of Israel, the loss of identity and purpose feels like death: a dry, lifeless, and brittle existence that feels far, far away from God.
As a young man, Ezekiel was taken into exile; forced to leave his home, and go live in Babylon against his will. He and other exiles lost their homes, and more importantly, their religious identity.
Forced to live in a strange land, away from their community and place of worship (can you relate?), they are in despair. Then the presence of God comes to Ezekiel.
In a vision, he finds himself at the edge of a valley, the spirit like a gust of wind, swirling around Ezekiel and downward to the center of the valley. All around him are bones. Mounds of them, void of marrow and blood; strewn around like forgotten keepsakes.
Then God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, that God will cause breath to enter them and they will live. At once there is rattling. The bones plump up, bursting with blood and marrow. They find each other, muscle covers the connected bones with a protective layer, and each bodily form is sealed with dewy pink flesh.
God says to Ezekiel “prophesy to the breath, let it breathe the Spirit of life into each of these who were once dead, so that they may live.” A gust of wind comes into the valley and enters the bodies. They are now fully alive and filled with the breath and Spirit of God.
God may lead us to the most unsightly places to meet with us, but we can trust that even in the driest, deadest places, God will always show up, a refreshing presence that longs to restore us to hope amidst despair and life amidst death.
As Ezekiel and the exiles found hope in the dry bones that lived again, so we find hope in the ever-present movement of the spirit of God among us; a whole body of many live bones imbued with the spirit of God.
Thanks be to God for this fresh breath of restorative hope.
Sara Robb-Scott, Pastor for Senior Adults, First Baptist Decatur