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Opening Prayer
Spirit of Christ, this Holy Week reach into the crevices of mind and shadows of heart to bring light and life to those parts of our selves hidden even from our selves and not yet made whole in you. We admit that our communities and we ourselves remain in need of healing and restoration to the vitality for which our Creating One formed us. As Ezekiel spoke to dry bones, speak over us your Word of Life, that we, like those bones, might come together a people infused with your Breath and breathing that Breath into the world much in need of healing and peace, joy and love, hope and graciousness. Amen.
Scripture: Ezekiel 37.1-14 (NRSV)
37The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know.’ 4Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I 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.’
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 Then he said to me, ‘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.” 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, 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, says the LORD.’
Devotional Comments
What could have happened in this passage from Ezekiel? For one thing, God could have spoken the Word over the dry bones. This did not happen. God, as God most often works, used a person, here Ezekiel, to be means of the impartation of healing, renewing Word. The biblical God seems to enjoy charging men and women, and children, to do things God could do without them.
Likewise, God the Father rejoices in embodying healing energy in Jesus of Nazareth, the healing, renewing Word. However, in the Gospels this Word takes flesh. No longer is the Word only a messenger of the Word, the Word is the Word. God speaks the Word over dying persons, separated from faith, hope, and love, and burdened by the dead laws and customs of religion. God becomes the Word God speaks, the Logos reveals the Creator: No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart (lit. bosom), who has made him known (St. John 1.18, NRSV).
Ironically, as noted by Henri J. M. Nouwen, “In and through Jesus we come to know God as a powerless God, who becomes dependent on us. But it is precisely in this powerlessness that God’s power reveals itself.” And “this is not the power that controls, dictates, and commands. It is the power that heals, reconciles, and unites. …” This is the “power of the Spirit” (Bread for the Journey, June 7).
The Creating Being can speak us forth, like enlivening Breath over a valley of dry bones. We can be a word for the Word, a word that is means of divine Spirit showering light and life through Love. Nouwen reminds us that Jesus wants to give us the power of sacred Spirit and that “the Spirit … empowers us and allows us to be healing presences.” Indeed, when we are saturated with Spirit, “we cannot be other than healers.”
Holy Week reminds us of the compassion Christ has for all persons. Jesus did not come to judge; rather, he came to be a healing presence: the Healing Presence. Through the Spirit of Christ, we, too, can be healing presences. To do so we need only be a means of the Christ, words of the Word, to the broken, lonely, and lost of our world.
Suggested Psalm Reading: Psalm 71.1-14
Spiritual Exercise
Reflect on ways you can be a healing presence to others in the name of Christ?
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