Notes from a Sojourn
May 29, 2020
“Come, Holy Spirit, breath of God,
give life to the dry bones of this exiled age,
and make us a living people, holy and free.”
“Mortal, can these bones live?” God asks his prophet, Ezekiel.
The prophet replies, “O Lord God, only you know that.”
Ezekiel is not so sure these bones can.
The vision before him is grim.
Ezekiel stands in the middle of a valley full of bones. Dry bones. The vultures and scavengers have long since finished their grisly occupation. The pungent smell of rotting flesh, too, has passed. An occasional gust of wind blows through, its lonely whistle unanswered. This is a lifeless and lonely place. Even Death itself seems to have moved on to more promising opportunities.
“Prophesy to these bones,” God urges Ezekiel, “and say this: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God! I’m bringing the breath of life to you!’” And as Ezekiel says this, a thunderous clunking and clattering bones begins to rumble. Very soon a nightmarish multitude of lifeless skeletons are assembled in front of him.
“Now, prophesy to the breath,” God continues, “and say this: ‘Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these bones. Breathe life!’” And when Ezekiel says it, the breath comes! The breath fills the skeletons and they come alive!
This inspired vision, gifted to Ezekiel, is a powerful illustration of the Breath of God creating life out of death.
In Ezekiel’s time, that death was the destruction and dislocation of Israel’s religious and social self-understanding. Any confidence or complacence Israel had in its ideology of “chosenness” and “exceptionalism” was ripped out from under its feet. An age of pretending and denial was over: they were materially powerless and spiritually vulnerable in a way they had never imagined they could be.
Every generation of the Church has had to confront its “Ezekiel moment,” including our own. Right now our religious and social self-understanding as Canadian Anglicans is undergoing a kind of death and dislocation that should call into question any complacent confidence we might still have in ideologies of our own exceptionalism. The age of denial is over: we are materially powerless and spiritually vulnerable in a way we never imagined we could be.
Although the vision before us can sometimes look grim - as grim as a valley of dry bones - our God is standing here beside us as he was with Ezekiel, urging us to prophesy to each other: “Listen to the Message of God!” And, as everything that sleeps within us awakes to the sound of that call, God urges us to pray again to his Holy Spirit: “Come breath! Breathe on these bones! Breathe life!”
Come, Holy Spirit, come.
Colin+
Image Credit
Valley of Dried Bones by Abraham Rattner (1895–1978), Lithograph, 23.5 × 35.2 in.
