Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” [Ezekiel 37:4-6 (NLT)]
The Jewish people were in despair. Jerusalem was in ruins and the Temple destroyed. Exiled to Babylon, they were without a king, homeland, or hope. God’s promise of Israel’s restoration is depicted in Ezekiel 37 when the prophet is transported in a vision to a valley filled with desiccated bones. The Lord instructs Ezekiel to speak a prophecy over the dry bones that the Lord will bring them back to life. As the prophet begins to speak God’s words, the bones start rattling and coming together as skeletons. The prophet watches as muscles, tendons, and skin cover the bones until they became fully formed bodies. Although the bodies look alive, they are no more than unbreathing corpses until the Lord instructs Ezekiel to tell the four winds to breathe life into the lifeless beings. As the prophet speaks God’s words, he witnesses the once dead bodies come alive, stand erect, and become a great army. The initial meaning is pretty obvious: the bones coming back together illustrate Israel’s restoration and the wind or breath entering the dead bodies illustrate spiritual renewal or rebirth.
Be that as it may, as a Sunday schooler who didn’t understand the story behind Ezekiel’s somewhat eerie vision, picturing those dry bones rattling and rising up gave me the creeps. Perhaps it was because of the children’s song Dem Dry Bones. Even though we sang it in Sunday school, the song was associated more with Halloween (and its ghosts and goblins) than Biblical prophecy. Sometimes, a second verse was added in which Ezekiel, after connecting those bones, disconnected them—not a pleasant visual for any child! Perhaps I’d simply seen too many Saturday matinees with zombies, mummies, or other creatures of the night. Not understanding the context behind Ezekiel’s prophecy, the whole vision seemed as macabre as does the Body Worlds exhibit that features real skinless corpses preserved in plastic.
Yesterday’s devotion mentioned how I enjoy listening to worship music on my frequent trips to and from my doctor’s appointments. When I first heard Elevation Worship’s Rattle, with its words, “And the bones began to rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle…This is the sound of dry bones rattling,” I initially thought of Ezekiel’s vision. The thought of hearing dry bones rattling immediately brought up the old ghoulish images from childhood. But, as I listened to the rest of their words, those bones weren’t the dry ones in Ezekiel’s vision. As they sang, “Saturday was silent, Surely it was through. … Friday’s disappointment is Sunday’s empty tomb,” I understood they were singing about Jesus rising from the grave and the renewal of life for those who are restored by His power.
Today, I returned to Ezekiel 37 and saw his vision as more than a simple prophecy of the people’s return from their exile in Babylon, the reconstitution of the modern state of Israel, and/or the end times and the second coming of Christ. I saw it as a beautiful story of hope and rebirth. Although the prophecy was for Israel, I see Ezekiel’s vision as an illustration of what God can do for and with us right now—the life-giving power of His word to put back together the pieces of our broken lives and the power of the Spirit’s breath to bring us back to spiritual life! No longer will I cringe at the thought of dry bones rattling and rising. They tell me that no one ever is beyond restoration—no one is ever so spiritually dead that he or she can’t come alive again. The rattle of dry bones will remind me that, without the resurrection power of Jesus and the breath of the Spirit, we are little more than dry bones in a valley.
No difficulties in your case can baffle him, no dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that he will accomplish, if you will only put yourselves absolutely into his hands and let him have his own way with you. [ Hannah Whitall Smith]
Devotions of the Heart 