Sooner or later, all of us find ourselves in situations that are just too much, when the life we knew or envisioned collapses, the place we considered home becomes uninhabitable, the dreams we once held dear are crushed. When we think it can’t get worse, it does. We wake up and realize we lack the resources, connections, and know-how to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and push through.
All we can do is pray. And wait.
The Israelites knew this feeling too. They’d spent years living in excruciating exile, displaced from their home. They longed for God to answer their cries, scoop them up, and return them to their homeland. They prayed and waited, yet God remained silent.
One notable trait of Old Testament prophets: a resistance to their calling. They never seem to race to the “Now Hiring Prophets” booth at the holy job fair and beg, “Please, please let me be the super weirdo around town who performs bizarre acts, makes people uncomfortable, and delivers mostly terrible news.”
Case in point: When Moses is tapped to talk to Pharaoh about the future, he stutters that he’s not cut out for public speaking. When Jeremiah discovers that God ordained him to be a prophet in the womb, he argues that he’s far too young. And when Isaiah receives his assignment, he protests, essentially whining, “But how long do I have to do this?”
Ezekiel is no exception. During the first wave of attacks on Jerusalem led by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE, Ezekiel, among a slew of other Jewish prisoners, is kidnapped and imprisoned in a camp. Five years later, still stuck in the squalor, Ezekiel turns thirty. The day called for an epic celebration surrounding his installation as a priest to serve in the temple, but it turns out to be a birthday to forget.
Amid deep disappointment, the Spirit ignites Ezekiel’s imagination with images of storm clouds, mysterious creatures, and spinning wheels within wheels — conveying that God’s presence isn’t limited to the ark of the covenant:
God lives in a mobile home, or rather, a mobile throne.
When Ezekiel drops face down, the Spirit lifts him to his feet and appoints him as a holy mouthpiece. The Spirit warns him not to get his hopes up, for most days his words will fall on deaf ears. The prophet soon feels the deep distress of his calling.
Ezekiel uses everything from spoken words to street theater to garner the people’s attention and deliver the Spirit’s messages.
He builds a model of Jerusalem and stages an attack. He shaves off his hair and dices it with a sword like he’s a theatrical chef at a hibachi restaurant. He plays the role of the fuzzy scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. He even lies on his side for an entire year — call the chiropractor! — and eats food that tastes like smoked dung as a sign of what’s to come.
All the prophet’s warnings come true. Jerusalem falls. The temple everyone hoped to return to is destroyed. The false prophets are purged. In the wake of the catastrophe and chaos, it looks like all is lost. But, as we have learned from the Spirit hovering over chaotic waters, that’s when the Spirit of God does something surprising and delightful.
Though God may have abandoned His temple, He hasn’t abandoned His people.
There’s a future beyond captivity and a hope for Israel, for all nations, and even for all of creation. A new king will rise who will be like no other.
The Spirit of the Living God rekindles hope among a discouraged Israel, lifts Ezekiel through a vision, and plops him down in a bone-strewn valley. The landscape likely makes Ezekiel queasy, as these are human bones and touching them serves as a fast pass to becoming unclean. Skulls and scapulas. Vertebrae and ribs. Femurs and phalanges. Shoulder blades and tailbones as far as the eye can see.
“Can these bones live?” the Lord asks.
Unsure of how to respond, Ezekiel confesses, “Only God knows.”
I suspect the Lord takes pleasure in the prophet’s humble response, because He invites Ezekiel into the process of speaking life into this graveyard. Ezekiel closes his eyes and prophesies.
Not once, but twice, the Lord declares to the bones that when ruach is in you, then you will come to life. The gripping scene continues:
And as I was prophesying, there was a noise,
a rattling sound, and the bones came together,
bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and
flesh appeared on them and skin covered
them, but there was no ruach in them.
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