"can these bones live?"
The Spirit instructed Ezekiel to speak the word of the Lord over the bones for the Lord has said He will cover them with flesh and skin; then He will breathe life into them and they shall know him as Lord.
As Ezekiel prophesied these words the dry bones came together with a great rattling and were covered with flesh and skin. But there was no breath in them. Again, picture the eerie scene of a valley filled with bones that have formed bodies yet have no breath; no life source.
So the Spirit speaks to Ezekiel again and tells him to speak to the breath and tell it to come from the four winds. Breath came and the once dry bones lived and stood on their feet forming a great army.
The spirit explains to Ezekiel that the bones are a people who have cried out "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off." But God promises them, "I shall put my spirit within you and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord."
In the telling of this vision I find clarity of where the Spirit has taken me recently. It has seemed again and again I have found myself set down in a valley looking at dry bones. The dry bones of injustice, sexism, broken relationships, academic, apathy, people's alienation from God have covered my path. The feeling of other people being in the valley alongside me but stepping over the dry bones as if they don't see them has left me wanting to scream at the valleys very walls. If hope is lost, we are indeed cut off.
But the walls of the valley swallow my screams and echo back the question of the Spirit,
"can these bones live?"
And the answer is that they can. The driest of bones can find life and knowledge of their maker; from the coldest of situations the Lord can rise his army. Verse 14 finishes the vision, "I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord."
(Ezekiel 37)
