These Bones - Part Two: Setting the Scene

Welcome back! In Part One, we talked about soul thirst, and met Ezekiel, a priest with no church, a widower, and utterly broken.  Can we go back and take a closer look? 

I have to admit, there are few things I love more in life than a good word picture, and y'all, Ezekiel 37:1-3 does not disappoint!

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. 2 And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” (ESV)

Dang, y'all! That is a lot!  Can we break this down, verse by verse?

In verse one, we start out with a bang (talk about painting word pictures).  The Lord took Ezekiel and set him down smack in the middle of a valley filled with bones.

Let me say that again...a valley.  Filled with bones! Can you even imagine? How terrifying it must have been?

Verse two continues on, filling out the word picture with even more details...Ezekiel got a guided tour through this valley of bones.  Not only could he see how plentiful the bones were, he could see how dry they were.  Other translations of this text go as far as to say that they were bleached by the sun.

Nothing, however, would prepare us for the straight-up craziness that is verse three.  God asks Ezekiel whether these bones could live. 

I am not sure about y'all, but were it me, I can only imagine how I would respond...forced out of my land, trying to do my job without a place to do it, a dead spouse, and then transplanted (even if in a vision) into a collection of bones left to dry and decay in the sun.  In what I can only imagine was total numbness and bewilderment, Ezekiel manages to respond.  "O Lord God, you know".  In other words "what the heck do you want me to say? You are the expert and I am your numb and broken servant, trying desperately to stumble through this wasteland without desecrating the bones of anyone's grandma".  Or something like that...

Here is the great part...God never asks a question without already knowing the answer. Even more importantly, he always has a reason for asking us.

Tune in for Part Three to learn more about what amazing plan God had in store for Ezekiel.