Lent 5
Devotional
Water From the Well
Lectionary Devotional For Cycle A
Object:
... They say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely."
-- Ezekiel 37:11
The imagery of the valley of the dry bones is so powerful that people often miss the message. The message is of a people who were of the living dead. They were entirely devoid of hope. They were cut off from the Spirit that gave them life. Even the form and shape of the people had begun to dry up like bones of an animal in which the flesh had disintegrated, and the wind and elements had even separated the bones one from the other. It is totally beyond their control to save themselves or even imagine how it could be possible. All sense of community and connectedness had been fractured beyond repair. This was not a comatose situation in which, somehow, they could be miraculously revived. This was the total disintegration and dispersal of a people. This was three days in the grave when the body had begun to decay. In such a situation, which was beyond despair, the prophet told of what God would do. God would raise them from the grave and put God's Spirit in them.
Recall that in Genesis 2:7, when God had formed Adam from the clay, he still did not live until God breathed the breath of life into him. Ezekiel was speaking of resurrection on a corporate level. In the same way that Jesus would embody the corporate Israel in his person, so he also would embody their being raised to new life in his person. (One should note the reference in Matthew 27:52-53, which suggests fulfillment of this vision in the resurrection of Jesus.) When the cynical predictions of the death of the church or of the denomination overwhelm one, one needs to turn to this passage. Hear the death rattles of people who are tinkering with the bones of the church trying to rearrange them and give them new life. Then hear the prophet: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live." Perhaps what the church needs today is fewer tinkerers and more prophets.
-- Ezekiel 37:11
The imagery of the valley of the dry bones is so powerful that people often miss the message. The message is of a people who were of the living dead. They were entirely devoid of hope. They were cut off from the Spirit that gave them life. Even the form and shape of the people had begun to dry up like bones of an animal in which the flesh had disintegrated, and the wind and elements had even separated the bones one from the other. It is totally beyond their control to save themselves or even imagine how it could be possible. All sense of community and connectedness had been fractured beyond repair. This was not a comatose situation in which, somehow, they could be miraculously revived. This was the total disintegration and dispersal of a people. This was three days in the grave when the body had begun to decay. In such a situation, which was beyond despair, the prophet told of what God would do. God would raise them from the grave and put God's Spirit in them.
Recall that in Genesis 2:7, when God had formed Adam from the clay, he still did not live until God breathed the breath of life into him. Ezekiel was speaking of resurrection on a corporate level. In the same way that Jesus would embody the corporate Israel in his person, so he also would embody their being raised to new life in his person. (One should note the reference in Matthew 27:52-53, which suggests fulfillment of this vision in the resurrection of Jesus.) When the cynical predictions of the death of the church or of the denomination overwhelm one, one needs to turn to this passage. Hear the death rattles of people who are tinkering with the bones of the church trying to rearrange them and give them new life. Then hear the prophet: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live." Perhaps what the church needs today is fewer tinkerers and more prophets.
