How do you act when life makes no sense? When the things that you depend on have crumbled? Where do you look? What do you think?
Maybe you lost the job that you thought you would have forever. Maybe the unthinkable has happened, and your marriage has broken up. Maybe physical sickness has robbed you of your strength. Maybe your church, your place of refuge, is in horrible controversy. Maybe your family has been thrown into controversy and division.
When life is hard, when it doesn’t seem to make sense—where do you run? Where do you hide?
These are some of the questions Ezekiel helps us answer. When we understand his experience living in exile as a priest without a temple, we discover how this ancient book speaks to us today. Even though Ezekiel lived thousands of years ago, he has much to teach us about holding on to hope in dark times.
It looked like death was reigning and all hope was lost.
Dealing With Life’s Brokenness
Ezekiel’s world was a broken world. God’s people were exiled and dispersed and God’s temple lay in ruins. During this time, it looked like death was reigning and all hope was lost. In these kind of moments, it’s tempting to question God’s promises. It’s tempting to question His power. It’s tempting to doubt His presence. It’s tempting to bring God into the court of our judgment and question His faithfulness and His love.
On the surface, Ezekiel seems to be a portion of Scripture that we should avoid when we’re feeling depressed, because it seems very depressing.
But there is a moment in Ezekiel that gives us hope. This moment is so beautiful. It’s the valley of dry bones. This word picture in this passage is just amazing.
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones, He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.” (Ezekiel 37:1-2)
Dry bones as far as you can see, and the ultimate question of the whole biblical story is asked in that moment, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
The ultimate question of the whole biblical story is asked in that moment, "Son of Man, can these bones live?"
Trusting God With The Pieces
Ezekiel challenges us to ask, “Can life come out of death?” That question is important because if the answer is “No,” then we’re doomed.
Ezekiel shows us that the answer is, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” God has the power and the willingness to bring dead things to life.
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:5-6)
And we can’t look at life coming into those dry bones in Ezekiel without thinking of Ephesians 2:4-5:
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
Ezekiel is actually one of those places in the Old Testament where the gospel themes are not hard to find. I would call Ezekiel, “Resurrecting Grace.”
You see, apart from God’s resurrecting, life-giving grace, we’re all just dry bones. We’re just dead people walking. Out of death and destruction, God brings life! That’s the story of Jesus. He died to conquer death so that we could experience new life in Him. In the darkest of moments, the gospel shines the brightest!
Out of death and destruction, God brings life!
I am persuaded, and this will surprise some of you, that hopelessness is the doorway to hope. It’s only when you give up on finding life anywhere else that you will seek life where it can only ever be found.
When you look around and say, “There’s death all around me, death inside of me, I don’t know where to look for hope,” then you are ready to find true hope–hope that can make dry bones live. That hope can only be found in the person and work of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.
So when you need hope, when you need to experience the gospel in a new way, don’t skip Ezekiel. Don’t skip the Old Testament. Because the gospel is there, ready to be discovered, ready to give us hope in our struggles today and challenges tomorrow.