Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.”
Ezekiel 37:11 NIVUK
Have you ever been at a religious gathering that was, well, a little flat?
I remember we were invited by some Catholic friends to their son’s First Communion. That was a big deal for them. We felt privileged to be invited.
But their worship band really needed to drink some coffee or energy drink. Every song they sung was sung slowly, like a dirge. There was no life in it.
I also remember walking through the Romanian city of Tulcea and coming across a rather pretty looking Old Rite Orthodox Church. This interested me from an anthropological point of view. There are very few Old Rite believers left in Romania. So to have the chance to see their worship up close and personal was quite something.
And then I saw why they are slowly dying out.
The service was, again, at a mournful pace. It was also in Old Slavonic, an ancient language that even predates Russian. Hardly anyone can understand it – it’s the Old Rite equivalent of Latin. The worshippers were old – really old. So old that most were on the wooden benches around the church. Only one person was standing. And then, at one point in the worship, she bowed so low I was sure she was kissing the floor.
It felt like that church really was dying while I watched.
This makes a very profound point. It is possible to hear and obey God’s commands, and to gather together, but for these to be empty, meaningless, done just out of habit without any real purpose. Listen to these words, spoken before the Exile:
The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Isaiah 29:13 NIVUK
In other words, for our obedience and our gathering to have form, but no power.
They have no hope, just like the corpses of Ezekiel’s vision. They have no reason to live.
That's why God promised to reverse that sense of powerlessness by sending His Spirit. And that is what gives the people hope.
Consider the disciples. Before the resurrection, they were a highly dispirited bunch. Broken by the death of their leader, the betrayal and suicide of one of their companions and the denial of one of their senior members, most people would write them off and say they are useless.
In fact, even after the resurrection, we see them cowering in fear in a locked room (John 20:19), questioning and doubting what Jesus said to them (John 20:25; Matthew 28:17), leaving the city where they had been told to stay (Luke 24:13) and returning back to their former jobs (John 21:3).
Not exactly staunch believers.
Yet what a difference Pentecost made (Acts 2:1-41)!
It turned these fearful, doubting, disobedient runaways into fearless speakers and evangelists. Men who denied their Lord at the words of a servant girl to keep warm (John 18:15-18, 25-27) now stare down the Jewish high authorities (Acts 4:1-12) – a fact that confounds even those authorities (Acts 4:13).
Ezekiel is referring to a stunning transformation not unlike this. In Exile, the Jews had no king, no army, no country, no identity.
Now he sees them rising from their ‘graves’ to become a mighty army!
And what is it that makes this transformation?
It’s the Spirit of God – the same Holy Spirit of the New Testament.
You see, there is something special and glorious here that we don’t see in English. The same Hebrew word is used to mean ‘breath’, ‘wind’ and ‘spirit’: the word ruach. In Greek they have a common root (pneume for ‘wind’; pneuma for ‘spirit’).
What this means is that the Holy Spirit blows into these lifeless corpses and quickens them, making them a live and formidable army.
What this means is that the same Holy Spirit blows into a dry and dusty church, locked into the mundane and the routine, and quickens it, reviving it and making it alive.
As the human body cannot live for long without oxygen, so the church cannot live for long without the Holy Spirit. And it is the same for any ordinary Christian.
Maybe you’ve met Christians who live their lives like grumpy teenagers: always moaning and groaning and complaining; nothing is ever good enough; nothing is ever right.
That is not living. Not one bit.
If you feel like your Christian life has become dry, mundane and dead, the problem doesn’t lie with God. The problem is that you have quenched the Holy Spirit by failing to obey the Lord and failing to gather with His people. The problem is that you are too busy viewing the world through the narrow perspective of a negative outlook so you are unable to see Him at work.
Wouldn’t you much rather be quickened? Wouldn’t you much rather be raised?
Wouldn’t you much rather be alive?
Questions
What do you think of your own church and your own quiet times? Are they boring and routine or do you feel blessed through them?
How does the transformation of both the Jews and the disciples help you to see how this could change?
What will you do to revive your Christian walk?
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