Immediate Word

This week's lectionary texts provide a pair of stories that foreshadow the central message of Easter. Both the valley of dry, bleached-out bones in Ezekiel and Jesus' revival of Lazarus remind us that, even in the midst of the seeming finality of death, the Spirit of God provides new life. That's certainly a timely message, as the radiation-saturated area around the Fukushima nuclear plant (or Chernobyl, for that matter) seems to be an apt modern counterpart to the valley of dry bones.