Can These Bones Live?

Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:33-45

One of our neighbors for the entire month of October, created a scene in their front yard using lifesized skeletons. One was posed working on a car in the driveway. The hood was raised and it was peering into the engine. Another was down on hands and knees working in a flower bed. Another was posed with a mower as if mowing the lawn. Another of the bony creatures was dressed in an apron, carrying a hot dish with oven mitts.  Another was walking a little bone dog on a leash. There were several more! They were all working on various household chores and a sign in the yard read, “Working our fingers to the bone!”

It was creative. It was funny. It was relatable. There is always more to be done in the garage, in the kitchen, in the house, in the garden, in the yard, or to the car.  “Working my fingers to the bone!” I can hear my mother or father exclaim it in my memory.

There is a heaviness in our world that echoes those grim expressions we reach for:
“I am bone tired!”
“He looks like death warmed over!”
“She looks like the walking dead.”
“They are down to the bare bones.”
“Circling the drain.”
“They’ve got one foot in the grave and one on a banana peal.”
Or the thing that people say when they’re anticipating something life-altering: “I can feel it in my bones.”

Some of these phrases sound silly, but I imagine they originated in times of soul-deep exhaustion when a stark expression relieved the tension, or mitigated one’s fatigue.  Our scripture passages today lead us to recall times we have stood at graves, walked on battlefields, scattered ashes, tasted death… times when we were alive but not living, or bone tired of living without the people we love.

The prophet Ezekiel is led by the hand of God into a vision, a grim scene, showing him a valley full of bones.  These are not fresh kills. There are no buzzards picking at these bones. They’ve been lying here in the desert heat so long that they are dried up and dusty.

At the time Ezekiel was first summoned to speak to Israel, their rebellion against God and also against Nebuchadnezzar sealed their fate. Perhaps this vision  is a battlefield of Nebuchadnezzar’s doing. Perhaps a vision that is meant to convey the horror and helplessness of a long broken covenant with God and no doubt, its subsequent unspeakable loss. [1]

Purity laws would have forbidden this kind of contact with the dead, but that doesn’t stop Ezekiel, trance-like, being led through the field, wondering at the massive number of bones of those long dead. That’s when he hears the question, “Mortal, Can these bones live?” This week, the question for our consideration comes courtesy of God’s own voice.

Ezekiel was from a priestly lineage. It's safe to assume he spent his formative years in the shadow of the Jerusalem temple, breathing the smoke of sacrifice, hearing the liturgies, and learning the life of priesthood. As a prophet, he was one of the more eccentric – experiencing loss of speech and movement at times. He had frequent experiences of levitation, telepathy, and the occasional ability to be in two places simultaneously.[2] This is who God asks, “Mortal, Can these bones live?” Ezekiel measures his response carefully I believe, “Only you, Lord God, know the answer.”  Physical resurrection, that is "postmortem survival of the individual was not part of Israelite faith at that time.” So, Ezekiel leaves the answer up to the living God, source of life, for whom death was not an obstacle. He had at least heard this illustrated in the miracles and ministries of his predecessors, Elijah and Elisha. But this isn’t a story about individual resurrection, like that of Lazarus which would happen centuries later at the hands of Jesus. This is a story about communal restoration. This is a vision of what God intended to do with the whole house of Israel. [3]

To Ezekiel, God says, “Prophesy to these bones!” God makes a threefold promise.[4] God said these bones would be drawn back together, connected with tissue, sinews, and skin. Then God would animate these bones with breath; and return them to the land that was theirs. So, Ezekiel did just that. And as often it does, the earth responded to the words spoken in God’s name. There was a loud shudder, a quake that  jarred those bones to attention.  Then Ezekiel stood back and watched it all happen just as God said it would.

But when the bones came together, first as skeletons and then with the muscles, tendons and ligaments, they were still not alive. And God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the RUAH! That beautiful Hebrew word that means  breath, wind or spirit. Say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe upon these bones, that they may live. The Breath of God is the key ingredient that gives life to these zombies! Ten times in all, in this passage, we hear RUAH gives these bones life, but also more than that. God promises, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil” (37:14).[5]

What happens here in this death valley, echoes Genesis 1. It is the voice of God that sparks a beginning. It is the RUAH of God over the deep that separates the waters from the atmosphere. It is the breath of God that brings order to the chaos and the voice of God that animates an entire world out of Nothingness. I’m saying that what God shows Ezekiel in the vision of the valley of dry bones is God’s character, God’s true nature. After a decade old slaughter, God can revive the deadest dead in us.

If God can do that… What do you say, oh mortal, Can these bones live?

This week, Kate Bowler wrote an article she called The Courage of Despair. I offer some of her comments here knowing full well that some of you are dwellers of the valley of dry bones. You're alive but not living. Your heart is broken, or the world is too heavy for you. But here you are. Kate wrote,

Some people’s depression and despair have shown me more courage than most rah-rah acts of faith… It takes tremendous courage to live when your mind insists you have little value, or when your insides feel hollowed out. It takes courage to endure the kind of suffering that does not resolve with a good night of sleep, a better attitude, or a well-meaning sermon.

But if you’ve ever tried to pray while dead inside, you already know the secret Lent refuses to sugarcoat: sometimes the most truthful thing you can offer God is your distance.

Your reluctant presence. Your stubborn faith. The kind of faith that says, “O my Lord, if you had only been here, our brother would not have died” or “O my Lord, only you can say” if these bones can live.

When something in you has died, something you clung to, something beloved… Maybe a hope, a dream, a memory, a gift, a blessing… And then, it is no longer. Jesus couldn’t save it. It’s really gone. Like Lazarus in the grave - It stinks. It happens all the time. It’s too late for miracles. You grieve the loss. Then somehow, after all those tears, all those years, that absence, that hopelessness – a voice calls, “Come out!”  Come out.  And after all that death, a wind blows, Spirit moves, breath from all four corners of your soul fills your nostrils and you can breathe.[6]

That is the good news in these stories today. That is the character of God. God’s life-saving breath calls us from our graves of hopelessness, weariness, confoundedness.

Mortal, Can these bones live?

God breathes life into tired old, dried up bones. But God also gives these revived bones a homeland – which means an identity, a purpose, meaning. This resurrection  is not new life, like newborn baby life, but re-newed life, life that’s been forged from death.[7]

One of the things the army gives officers to take into battle, isn’t what you would expect, but a small laminated piece of paper that has the 23rd Psalm, the Lord’s prayer, words of baptism, last rites and instructions for various faiths… so that in the absence of a chaplain, an officer can stand in, speak words of faith and peace over the dying. I can’t imagine the courage, or resolve, that would call forth in a person in such a moment.

The question for Ezekiel, even the call for Jesus at Lazarus tomb, was not did they have the courage to speak words of peace over the dead, but over the living when the situation may not  immediately get better. “Friend, Can these bones live?” This is a question not of probability, but possibility.  We wait to see if God will do anything when we struggle to believe a situation will get better. Look what happens here… God employs Ezekiel in the raising, in the resuscitation of these dried up bones. God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the Spirit, speak to the wind, the breath. Ezekiel is called up, and called into co-creation, or RE-creation with God. With God, the Spirit is activated through the words of an eccentric prophet. [8] If God can call Ezekiel, who else can God call? God calls willing servants into co-creation with him, even in the valley of dry bones. Does Israel have the courage to believe that they will outlive their exile, their exploitation, the authoritarian regimes? Do they have the courage to believe their future holds purpose? Do they have the courage to live?  Do we?

The powerful RUAH, breath of God goes with us into every graveyard we must enter, and onto every battlefield we encounter; and into every death dealing, breath stealing board room, hospital room, classroom, panic room, living room, basement, attic… There is nowhere the power of the life-restoring breath of God can’t go.  I can feel it in my bones. Amen.

[1] Odell, Margaret, Working Preacher commentary Ezekiel 37:1-14

[2] Blenkinsopp. Joseph, Interpretation series commentary, Ezekiel, introduction

[3] Mayfield, Tyler, Working Preacher commentary Ezekiel 37:1-14

[4] Cornell, Collin, Working Preacher commentary Ezekiel 37:1-14 2026

[5] Blenkinsopp

[6] This paragraph is adapted from Steve Garnaas-Holmes’ reflection titled, Come Out, on Unfoldinglight.net.

[7] Odell, Margaret

[8] Blenkinsopp