The Valley Where the Bones Stood Up

Far from home, in the land of Babylon, God's people were tired. Not the sleepy kind of tired, but the kind where you feel all used up, sure there is nothing good left inside you and nothing good coming, and certain you are too far gone for anybody to fix.

They said to each other, "We are finished. There is no hope for us. We are only old bones now."

So God took a man named Ezekiel by the hand, the way you take the hand of a small, frightened child, and led him out to a valley.

Oh, it was a sad place.

The valley was full of bones. Dry bones, scattered everywhere, white in the sun. Bones that had given up a long, long time ago. No breath in them anywhere. Just stillness, and dust, and bones.

God walked Ezekiel all the way through them. He wanted him to really see. Then God asked a question, gently, the way you ask when you already have something wonderful in mind.

"Ezekiel. Can these bones live again?"

And Ezekiel said, "Oh Lord. Only you know."

Then God said, "Speak to them. Say to the dry bones, Hear what the Lord is telling you. He is going to put breath inside you, and you will live."

So Ezekiel spoke.

A sound began. A rattle, then a clatter, then a rumble all across the valley floor. Bone found bone and clicked together. Then came muscle, soft and new. Then skin, smooth over the top. Soon the whole valley was full of bodies, finished and still.

Beautiful, and whole, and not yet breathing.

Because there was one more thing, and only God could give it.

"Breath," God said. "Come from the four winds. Breathe on these, that they may live."

And the wind came. It swept across the valley, warm and alive, and went into them.

They breathed.

They sat up. They stood up. A whole great army of them, alive, eyes open, hearts beating, standing on their feet, where a moment before there had been only dust.

Long before, when the world was brand new, God had bent down over a man made of dust and breathed into him, and the man came alive. Now, in this valley, God was doing it again.

The saddest place became the gladdest place.

And God leaned close to his tired, used-up people and told them what it meant. "I know you said you were finished. I know you feel like dry bones. But I am going to open up every grave. I am going to put my own breath inside you. And you will live, and you will come home, and I will be your God."

God was never going to leave a single one of his children lying in the dust.

One day a man would stand at a grave and call a dead friend out by name, and out he would walk. And one day that same man would walk out of his own grave, alive forever, breathing a breath that nothing can ever stop.

His name is Jesus.

And he is coming again, to do for the whole world what God did in that valley: to open every grave, to call every sleeping child up into the morning, and to breathe until death has not one dry bone left to keep.

You are not too far gone, little one. You never were. The wind that woke that valley knows your name, and it is on its way to you.