CAN DRY BONES LIVE?

       Ezekiel 37:1-10 is a great message of hope. It's an affirmation that all things are possible for God and that our "good-byes" won't be forever. It's an Easter message in many churches, but it's also a message that we need to hear... when we're watching a loved one die... or leaving a friend for what we know will be the last time... or carrying a box filled with personal items from our office to our car because we won't be reporting to work come Monday. For all of us who have come face-to-face with death, separation, betrayal, or an emptiness too deep to measure... clinging to the hope that dry bones live... is the only hope we have!
      According to our history books, Israel was attacked and destroyed by the Babylonians in 597BC. Men, women, and children were killed. The temple was plundered and destroyed, and thousands of Jews were taken into captivity. They were resettled in Babylon and this included the eccentric prophet, Ezekiel. Everything that they had owned was gone and they had to face the reality that, even though they were God's favored people, they were destined to die in a foreign land. If ever there was a hopeless situation, this was it... but according to Ezekiel, "the hand of the Lord" brought him out "by the Spirit" and set him in the middle of a valley of dry bones. The bones were really dry, and the Lord asked him if the dry bones could live. "Can these dry bones live?" he asked. Can they? Is it possible? What do you think? I don't know, Ezekiel answered, and God told him to "prophecy" to the bones, which he did. And "there was a rattling sound" of bones coming together. Ezekiel looked and the dry bones took on flesh, and when he spoke again, the breath of God entered them... and they came to life and stood on their feet as a vast army!
    O my, what a vision! For a man in exile, what a vision! For people who had lost their loved ones, their homes, and their freedom, what a promise! For those of us who have walked in a valley full of dry bones, what a hope! When his world was crumbling around him, the "Spirit of God" sat Ezekiel down in a valley of dry bones. He was knee-deep in dry bones, and God asked him the question that we all struggle with when we come face to face with death- CAN THESE DRY BONES LIVE? When we held my brother's funeral service in Anniston, Alabama, there was some concern that Randy did not look like himself. The funeral directors, it seemed, had not done a particularly good job... but the bigger question was this: CAN THESE DRY BONES LIVE? In God's Sovereign hands, can Randy Lee Shedenhelm live? That was the question. It is always the question. When they took my brother, Larry, off of life-support, a deep and abiding sorrow filled the air, and the mystery of life and death pervaded our spirits. Was this the end of Larry... or was it a new beginning in which he would be free of both cancer and death?
      Would his dry bones live. That was the question and it wasn't asked in a theology class somewhere. We were standing up to our knees in a valley of dry bones, and we could hear God asking, "Can these dry bones live?" When we walk through the graveyards that dot our lives; when someone abandons us; when we get "downsized," or "fired,; when we see our friends die in combat; when we're told that we will never walk again, or work again, or that we have just a few months to live... we hear God whisper, "Son of man... CAN THESE DRY BONES LIVE?" Can they? Well...can they? Like most of you, I've seen the dying and the dead and I've struggled to make sense of it all. Like you, I've had my share of life's "little deaths" too- and I know dry bones when I see them. I've heard the sobs, I've seen the vacant looks, I've experienced them myself. There are valleys of dry bones in life and we can't avoid them, So, it's just a matter of time when we will be asked Ezekiel's question: CAN THESE DRY BONES LIVE?
      When my brother, Randy, died in '94, we had already cried our tears... as we watched him get thinner and thinner.. and weaker and weaker. Hospice watched over him and his partner was with him, as he faded away. His boys stood by him, and my brother, Larry, and I did the same, but from a worldly point of view, it was alway clear that there was no hope. Randy was in a valley of dry bones... but he told me that he wasn't afraid to die because he was in God's hands. Randy believed that dry bones live, and this is the truth that we claimed for him at his funeral. Larry was the middle brother between Randy and me, and he was a good man. He was successful and talented too, and I was proud of him... but in the course of time, a deadly form of Leukemia had it's way with him and he passed away. I was blessed to be with his family as he was dying, and I can tell you that there were dry bones everywhere around. Anyone could see that death was knocking at the door, but Larry, who was not given to idle chatter, told me that he would see Randy when he got to heaven.
      Randy and Larry are gone now, but they are NOT dead because, in God's hands, dry bones live! Because Christ lives, we will live... and because He lives, our lives are worth the living. This is the promise and the truth. Amen!