You Don't Have to Be a Bag of Dry Bones

Mike Hosey, An Elder

In measurable terms, we tend to equate life with certain parts of our bodies.  Most often we do this by how we declare death, and thereby assume a lack of life. For instance, one doctor might declare a person dead if there is no heartbeat.  Another doctor might judge a person to be dead if there is no basic brain activity.  Of course, these organs (and others) need to be functioning for our bodies to be considered alive.  But life isn’t in any particular organ or group of organs. It’s not in our hearts. It’s not in our muscles. It’s not in anything physically attached to our bodies.  Dead bodies, after all, can be kept “alive” by artificially causing a heart to pump and lungs to work.  Instead, life is in the very breath or spirit of God.

Consider the story of Ezekiel and the valley of the dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14).  In this story, the nation of Israel has suffered in exile because of her sins, and because of the military conquests of her enemies. The nation is, in fact, dead and separated from life, culture, history and activity.  God powerfully takes Ezekiel in a vision to a valley full of scattered bones.  The bones are dry, meaning that the bodies they belonged to had been dead for quite some time. God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones that they will come alive.  He does, and the scattered bones come together, form skeletons, and grow tendons, muscles, and skin. Standing before Ezekiel in the valley is an army of bodies, but they are not alive until the prophet, obeying God, calls for breath to fill them. God fills them with breath and they become alive.  This was God’s way of showing Israel that he was serious about his power to resurrect and restore them as a nation (Ezekiel 37:11-14). He tells them that he shall put his spirit in them and they shall live.

This kind of power applies to us as Christians as well.  When we are down, and out of hope, or when our activity has kept us from serving God as we should, or when we have moved our minds and hearts away from God, he has the ability to breathe life into us again. In those moments when we are down, we equate life with a lot of different physical things like money, spare time, recreation, a relationship, or any host of things.  But real life is only life when we are breathing in the breath of God (Genesis 2:7, Acts 17:25). In fact, the Old Testament Hebrew word for spirit, and the New Testament Greek word for spirit (as in the life giving Holy Spirit) are words that mean breath!