Reading: Devotional

December 27

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A Sign of Hope

Ezekiel 37:1–14

In [Christ Jesus] you also are being built together

into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:22 (ESV)

One of the better known visions of Ezekiel is of a desolate valley full of the dry bones of the dead. It was a visual metaphor of the condition of the people of God in exile, spiritually stagnant and despairing. Although some recognized their spiritual need, they were dead to any hope of spiritual vitality. They (Ezekiel included) certainly knew that they could do nothing to escape their condition. But then God asked Ezekiel an interesting question: “Son of man, can these bones live?”

The obvious answer was “No; no way.” How could these lifeless, gnawed on, mixed-up bones find their mates and reattach, resupplied with the ingredients that make up healthy organisms, and once again live? They could not. And more to the point, there was no way that the people of God could live again. They were either dead or in exile, with their government, their holy city, their temple, and their civilization destroyed. There was no way they could live again. Except that with God all things are possible. So Ezekiel cautiously but reverently confessed that only the Lord knew what he was able and willing to do.

God then commanded Ezekiel to speak the word of the Lord to those bones. He obeyed and saw the bones join together to form skeletons and then live again. It was an echo of the creation when “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7).

The obvious message was that although Judah was under judgment, dead, and without hope, God would, by his Spirit, call them back to life and service to him. It’s the same message God wants his people to get today. Judgment and death aren’t the last word for those whom the Lord has called to be his own. 

December 28

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God’s Everlasting Covenant of Peace

Ezekiel 37:15–28

“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed,

but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,

and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord.

Isaiah 54:10 (ESV)

Ezekiel’s prophecy was initially fulfilled after seventy years of exile, when some people were allowed to return home. That’s when Israel came back to life as a nation. But it was fulfilled in a more complete way in Jesus Christ. When Christ came, the life and hope of the Jewish people was as dead as it had been in the exile. Not many of them expected the self-sacrificing and humble Messiah that God sent; that’s why they, with the help of their Gentile masters, ended up killing Jesus on a cross. But it was that very murder and God’s reversal of it on Easter that gave, and continues to give, life to people who are the spiritual equivalent of old, dried-out bones. It’s these people, born-again Jews and Gentiles alike, who make up what the apostle Paul calls “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16).

The book of Acts is nothing less than the story of God putting flesh on dry bones, then breathing life into them, and doing it all over the then civilized world. The continuing spread of the gospel today into new language and people groups is the same thing, a fulfillment of Ezekiel 37.

There are still many people who feel like dried or drying bones, and some too, who have lost their way—although they may not recognize it—and who can’t or don’t want to find their way out of the deceit of sin. God’s message of hope cannot be heard by those who are full of themselves, but only by those who have the honesty to admit that they are dead without God. Wherever people come to the end of themselves, look to Christ for help, and receive his Spirit, this is where dry bones become living souls—souls in everlasting community with God and also with all who have found life in him.