The Valley of Dry Bones

The Valley of Dry Bones as told in Ezekiel chapter 37 has always been a great story, and one of my personal favorites, but I wish to speak on it now during Holy Week. Sure, one could read the story very straightforwardly and dry-ly (haha) but when you stop to really consider it, it is amazing. The Lord is leading the prophet Ezekiel through the land, and leads him into a valley full of human bones, bones that have been there so long that they are clean and free from all flesh and skin. The Lord then asks Ezekiel if the dead bones can live. Ezekiel wisely acknowledges his ignorance and says "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.". The Lord then tells him to prophesy to the dead bones. Stop here and imagine this, Ezekiel who has been preaching against all the people of the land about God's wrath is now commanded to prophesy to a valley of lifeless bones. The Lord tells him to say "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life...". "Hear the word of the Lord!" spoken into a valley of bones. And whats more, after that profound statement, the bones assemble themselves and are covered with flesh and skin! Ezekiel is then commanded to prophesy that breath enter them and that they live, just as he prophesies, it occurs.

How many of us feel that "Go and make disciples" is too big a chore? That there's no way we could make disciples of every nation? Yet here is a prophet commanding a valley of dead and dry bones to live because the Lord wills it! How much more then can the Lord bring the living to himself? This story always reminds me to speak with authority of knowledge, and not of timidity for my God can do all things. More than that, it almost always brings me to tears to remember that I was dead bones. I was dead bones in an isolated valley before the Lord commanded me to live again and to come to him, and he raised me up! Rejoice now in Holy Week that the Lord has raised up dead bones to life!

"Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!" Ezekiel 37:3