KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 8 May
Living in the care of the Good Shepherd
Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the dry bones is dramatic and compelling. The prophet is carried in a vision to a valley in which there are a host of dry bones. “Son of man,” God says to Ezekiel, “can these bones live?” He is commanded to prophesy to the bones: “hear the word of the Lord.” The dry bones are an image of the people of Israel who are dead to the living Word and Spirit of God. They are being recalled to life and purpose.
What Ezekiel faces in the proverbial valley of dry bones is exactly what every teacher, preacher, coach and leader faces. We look out and wonder: ‘is this gathering a collection of dry bones, dead and un-alive to the challenges at hand?’ How to inspire and enliven them? The story is about the principles and ideals which properly belong to our life and being at once individually and collectively. We only live when the animating principles that belong to the integrity of our institutions are alive in us. All that one can do, of course, is to proclaim them and make them known. Whether they will live in you or not says everything about you. Are you dead or alive?
The passage from Ezekiel is about that idea of principles being alive in us inwardly without which they can have no expression outwardly. The story is powerfully and colourfully told: bone upon bone, “a great rattling of bones,” and then sinew and flesh coming upon the bones. It is a wonderful image about the formation of our bodies, we might say, and yet the point is that something more is needed. We are more than our bodies, it seems. The story intentionally recalls the Genesis story of creation about God forming our humanity from the dust but expands upon it in terms of bone joined to bone along with sinew and flesh. But that is merely external. The key point in Genesis a is the idea of God breathing his own spirit into our humanity so that we become living beings. And so, too, here in our being recalled to life, to living with purpose.
Ezekiel’s story is about Israel being raised back to life by God’s spirit being breathed into the dry bones. In other words, it is about Israel being recalled to the principles and ideals of the Law that properly belong to her identity and vocation. With Ezekiel there is now an emphasis upon what is no longer simply external but internal. Ezekiel argues that the Law must be engraven upon our hearts. The ideals and principles that are before us have to be realised in us. It is really a question about whether or not we are willing to let ideas live in us. It is an ancient question and one that remains for us.