Dry Bones
Covid 19 has brought about all kinds of encounters we wouldn’t normally have had, if it weren’t Covid. For instance, I have a friend in South Africa. He is like me a husband and dad. We studied at the same seminary and like me a few years ago, he recently got accepted in the Presbyterian Church and is seeking a call. Eager to gain some interaction and engagement with Canadian Christians, I saw an opportunity with our online Bible study classes to invite him and have him lead a study. This took place yesterday and was an edifying experience to us all. He chose Ezekiel 37, the passage of the vision of a valley of dry bones, shown to Ezekiel by God. God orders Ezekiel to speak to the dry bones. Through God’s breath they come together and become alive (much like we did when we once believed the gospel.)
We were all reminded of and encouraged with how God has the ability to do the unthinkable. He can turn hopeless situations around. He can bring dry bones to life. It gives hope for Covid, which to many of us feels like a dry bone kind of situation but the hope is even more personal. The image of dry bones should in our mind not only represent external situations but our own former internal state. We were spiritually dead, unable to save ourselves and choose God. Jesus in the gospel of John conquered the finality of death and breathed the Holy Spirit in us, bring us to rebirth and new life.
There is a specific couple that often sleeps on our church’s doorstep. I have come to know their names and some of their story. There is less awkwardness but every now and then they oversleep and me wanting to get inside the church just when they wake up is still very awkward to me. There is always that brief but intense moment of hesitant anxiety when I see their bodies lying dead still covered with blankets. I know they both use drugs habitually and in this moment, I always wonder if this might be the morning after the evening they took it to far. Reliefs sweeps across me at the first signs of movement when I greet them loudly and shout as friendly as I can: “Rise and shine guys!”
In light of yesterday’s study, I view this scene differently. As a small enactment of God’s work in our lives. Him calling us out of slumber like He did through profits, preachers and Sunday School Teachers. Him calling us to new life, from a place where we block entrance to a place where we point to the way. From addiction to worship and love.
This couple should remind me every morning when I encounter them of where I was or would have been had Jesus not found me. It should keep me ever so humble and gentle…and also hopeful. Hopeful, not only for myself but for them as well. Their bones are not even dry yet. They pose no challenge for God and His grace. They haven’t fallen so far, that God’s grace cannot reach them. I can ask them with confidence to rise and shine, trusting that in doing that, I echo in a small God’s desire for them in the most complete and ultimate way possible.
Gabriel J Snyman
May 7th 2020