By Dennis R. Bolton
Standing in a valley full of dry, dead human bones is no abstract philosophical encounter with death. God had brought Ezekiel to this grim graveyard as the prophet balanced himself on broken skulls and sharp rib bones. God took him by the hand and led him around as if to make sure he didn't miss a bone. Death filled all the senses as Ezekiel surveyed the Grim Reaper's playground.
It had been over ten years since Ezekiel, his family and others had been marched off into exile from Judah to Babylon. He watched his whole world and his whole culture unravel under the rule of Babylon. Life in a foreign country, cut off from native culture, religion and customs, must have been a lonely and hopeless experience. Yet Ezekiel's role as a prophet was to remind his people that God was still in charge and at work.
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God's voice broke the silence. "Mortal, can these bones live" (
Ezek. 37:3)? Standing knee deep in dry white bleached human bones, Ezekiel is asked this question. As we listen to this Scripture reading, there is an audible sense of empty nothingness. A white bland canvass of despair, covered in colorless paints, fills the scene. For where there is death, there is nothing. There is no smell, no color, no movement and no breath in this place of hopelessness. What faith it took for Ezekiel to muster his answer, "O Lord God, you know" (
v. 3).
God tells Ezekiel to prophesy and tell the bones that God's breath will come into them. These brittle dead bones will live and be covered by sinews and flesh. In response to God's living breath, Ezekiel hears a rattling noise as bone is joined to bone. Next, God tells his prophet to call upon the four winds from where God's breath will come to bring these bones to life as the restored people of Israel. All of this happened because God said so and Ezekiel dared to believe. God's breath suffocated Death. The life giving breath of God will even open the graves of the dead. God's breath suffocated Death.
What could be more different from a valley full of dried dead human bones to a freshly stinking corpse of the man. Yet the result of death is the same: hopelessness and despair. This time it's not the nation of Israel that grieves without hope but two ordinary sisters: Mary and Martha. Their brother Lazarus was sick and dying when they sent word to Jesus. "Lord, he whom You love is ill" (
John 11:3). Yet Jesus did not arrive until four days later after Lazarus had been put into the tomb. No wonder when Martha met Jesus she told him that if he had arrived sooner, her brother would not have died. For death seems so powerful and permanent when you find yourself hopelessly touched by its cold hand. Mary echoes her sister's same feelings when she meets Jesus too. "Lord, if you would had been here, my brother would not have died" (
John 11:32). Death has convinced the sisters that where death is, there is no God.