A valley of bones that comes to life, putting on flesh and skin and breathing once more. A vision of hope to a people in exile who were forgetting who they were, forgetting the God they worshipped. The vision promised that God’s people would rise again. The people may forget God, but God would remember his people and bring them together once more.
Have you ever forgotten who you were?
Have you ever wondered, “What am I doing here? Why bother with this life I live?”
“I can’t go another step because there is no where to go.”
“I can’t keep this up. The burden of emptiness is too much.”
Have you ever felt like a pile a dry dead bones? Disjointed, unconnected to the past, the present and the future? A meaningless pile.
What did you do next?
Was there relief? Was there a breath of fresh air?
Ezekiel knew the blues. But there was always that faint wind of hope to carry and refresh him. We may forget the “Why” of life, but God hasn’t forgotten us, and will re-member our disjointed lives, bringing life out of death.
Somehow Ezekiel had caught a whiff of the fresh air of the body of Christ. A body that could not forget the “Why” of life, a body that would re-member all our dry bones.
Have you ever lost the love of your life? Not just a loved one, but the one whose love filled the day. The love of your life.
Have you ever fallen into the chasm that such a loss digs into your soul?
Love is gone.
If it hasn’t happened to you yet, you must know someone who has lived through it, or is living through it.
The only thing worse is to never have loved enough to know such a loss.
Mary and Martha had lost their brother, Lazarus.
They were one of those rare families that never needed to break up the household and start their own homes. Two sisters and a brother, a family at home since birth.
And the family had lost the love of their lives.
And Jesus hadn’t stopped it.
Oh, and Mary and Martha let Jesus know it too, and they still held out the hope and the expectation that Jesus would make it better.
Jesus saw their weeping and “he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”
When he approached the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus began to weep. He was greatly disturbed.
“And Jesus wept.”
The words echo down through history.
Jesus fell into the chasm that Lazarus left behind.
That hole in the ground was big and dark. It was the hole left behind by all the grief , and pain and meaninglessness of every human being.
It was a hole in the heart of God.
But God was deeper still.
God was deeper still, and Jesus remembered Lazarus and then he said the words.
He said the words that send chills down our spines.
“Take away the stone.”
“Lazarus come out.”
“Unbind him and let him go.”
The universe shook.
A fresh wind was beginning to blow.
Soon all these bones are going to start moving.
Have you ever found a hope beyond reason?
Have you ever found a joy without explanation?
Have you ever known deep down that everything is starting to change?
Have you ever suddenly found that you can trust God with… everything?