/fairfaxs-website/image-f878f-i65ab.png "Fairfax Presbyterian Church")
In 1954, a singer named Big Joe Turner gathered with a group of rhythm-and-blues musicians in New York City. In the offices of Atlantic Records, they pushed the furniture to the walls and recorded a song called “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” It was quickly picked up and recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets, and then by Elvis Presley. The song became Haley’s first gold record, a best-seller for Decca in 1954, and an important piece of rock history. Six decades later, people still Shake, Rattle and Roll.
But Big Joe Turner was not the creator of this distinctive sound. Going back many centuries, we find the prophet Ezekiel, taken into exile in the city of Babylon more than 500 years before the birth of Christ. While in captivity, the prophet sees seven visions which include messages of judgment on Israel because of their idolatry, messages of judgment on the other nations of the world, and promises of future blessings for the people of Israel. Sadly, the 37th chapter of Ezekiel begins in a lifeless place. The passage seems more like a judgment than a blessing when the prophet reports that the hand and the spirit of God “set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry” (Ezek 37:1-2). The “Valley of Dry Bones,” writes Walter Brueggemann, is “a metaphor for Israel in exile with no prospect for the future.”
Bones. Dry bones. No signs of life. No rock-and-roll drum beats. God says to Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And the prophet, seeing no evidence of vitality, simply says, “O Lord GOD, you know” (Ezek 37:3). For Ezekiel, life for these bones does not seem possible. They are dry, and we all know what dry feels like. Dry is when you are finding no career path in your 20s, struggling to get pregnant in your 30s, feeling distant from your spouse in your 40s, losing your job in your 50s, worrying about retirement in your 60s, and suffering the death of your partner in your 70s. Mortal, can these bones live? It doesn’t seem possible. The bones are so dry.
But the prophet knows that nothing is impossible with God. “O Lord GOD,” he says, “you know.” God gives a command to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD” (Ezek 37:3-4). The prophet is told to deliver the word of God to the dry bones because this word has the power to create something new, to bring life to the dead. Since the beginning of time, God’s word has shown creative, life-giving power. In the first chapter of Genesis, God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light — the word of God creates a new reality, bringing light into darkness (Gen 1:3). Through the prophet Isaiah, God promises that “my word … shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that for which I purpose” (Isa 55:11). “In the beginning was the Word,” says the Gospel of John, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God …. All things came into being through him” (John 1:1, 3).
Throughout the Bible, the Word of God has life-giving power, and Ezekiel is willing to trust this Word. In the middle of his own dry, dusty, lifeless experience in exile, he is willing to put his faith in the God who says to the bones, “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezek 37:5-6). God promises to cause breath to enter the bones — literally, God causes ruah to enter. Ruah is the Hebrew word for breath, and it also means wind and spirit. Ruah is the breath that inspires God’s creative words (Psalm 33:6). Ruah is the “breath of life” that is snuffed out by the great flood (Gen 6:17). Ruah is the “wind from God” that sweeps over the face of the waters at the beginning of creation (Gen 1:2). Ruah is the “holy spirit” that we need in order to feel the presence of God (Psalm 51:11). God puts it into us so that we can live. Ezekiel reports, “suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone” (Ezek 37:7). Through the power of God, the bones begin to Shake, Rattle and Roll.
God says to Ezekiel, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely’” (Ezek 37:11). God commands Ezekiel to assure them that he will open their graves, bring them back to life, and return them to their homeland in Israel. “I will put my spirit within you,” promises God, “and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act” (Ezek 37:14).
This promise is true for us as well, when our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. This passage is one of the Bible’s greatest hits because it shows us that God’s Word and God’s breath-wind-spirit can give us new life, as individuals and as communities. When dry bones begin to rattle and join together, we discover together that hope is stronger than despair, death is never final, and sadness can give way to joy. Shake, Rattle and Roll. Much more than a song, it’s a sign that God is always raising us to new life.
Questions:
1. When has your life felt like dry bones?
2. How have you experienced the life-giving power of God’s Word, if at all?
3. Where do see a connection between breath, wind and spirit?
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