We have asked for much from our ensembles and ourselves through the many weeks of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. Remember the day after Easter? There was a beautiful aura of warmth and joy over the day. Yet it was also a day to recover, rest, and reflect. How do we hold on to resurrection hope once the Easter crowds have returned home and the weekly routine sets back in? Let’s take a detour together to an Old Testament book to find our way back to the empty tomb.
You’re doing it, aren’t you? You read the title, and right along with me started singing about that scene from the book of Ezekiel:
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones; now hear the word of the LORD.
If we aren’t careful, we will get lost in the music and miss the significance of an important story.
Several months ago, inspired by a devotional reading in Ezekiel, I wrote a fun choral warm-up for my children’s choir based on the classic Dry Bones spiritual. Using the exercise as a teaching moment, I shared the story of Ezekiel 37:1–14 in a kid-friendly way appropriate for third through fifth graders. Three points I shared with them are equally beneficial for us as adult musicians ministering to our ensemble members.
Israel was in a state of despair – and sometimes we are too!
Have you experienced a measure of despair lately? Perhaps you have listened to the laments of others going through trying, difficult times. The Israelites were also in a state of despair – living in captivity in a foreign land. They had lost their homes, their nation, and their temple in Jerusalem, the epicenter of their religion.
There have been times in my life when I have felt great despair, metaphorically living in a foreign land with no hope of deliverance. Chances are you have been there too. Maybe the feeling of captivity was the result of poor decisions, or a lack of options, or something else totally beyond our control. Clearly, despair is not a state any of us would choose!
There are people in our ensembles right now who are feeling captive or stuck in some way. Some of them may be very private about their situations, while others may speak openly. Trudging along in their own valley of dry bones, they may not be ready to hear the word of the Lord, but they thirst for an encouraging word from a caring friend. You yourself may be in that valley, wondering how much longer the drought will last. How often do our prayers of lament echo those of the psalmist David?
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
—Psalm 13:1
That brings us to the next point:
God offered hope to Israel – as well as to us today!
Just as God instructed Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones, saying “Hear the word of the Lord,” we also need to hear the word and share it with those in our circle of care. God through the Spirit sends his breath into our lives when we are ready to receive it, much like the old bones in that valley began to rattle their way back to life.
God spoke to Israel when they assumed that all hope was lost, that they had passed into a valley with no way back home, back to God. God made a promise that would later be fulfilled:
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.
—Ezekiel 37:12
And hope was reborn in the people.
This part of the story sounds a lot like Easter to me. Jesus was sealed in a grave. His followers had lost hope. And then on the third day, God breathed life back into the body, and the life of Jesus was restored.
Perhaps in the challenges of your work, your home, your day-to-day living, you have lost your grip on hope. Hear the word of the Lord – resurrection day is coming!
God has the power to bring life to hopeless situations.
God did not make an empty promise: the people returned to Israel and rebuilt their lives, their homes, even the temple in Jerusalem.
In our most hopeless seasons, our times of greatest spiritual drought, we can look to the hope God offers. Why? Because we live on this side of the resurrection. We have trudged through the 40 days of Lent, the ashes, and the fasting and have arrived at the door of the empty tomb. If God can breathe life into dry bones and restore the broken body of Jesus, he can certainly breathe his Spirit into our lives! Laments are then transformed into praise, and sorrows into rejoicing:
But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
—Psalm 13:5-6
I have for many years kept a prayer journal with various offerings of gratitude and prayers for my family, myself, and for others. Each day there is an updated listing of the most urgent prayer needs. I call it my PEF list: Praying Especially For. Included in the daily PEF are the names of musicians and their family members who are experiencing life crises. You are likely to have a similar list. I try to let those on the list know of my prayers for them – through a note, a call, a private word in the hallway at church, or most commonly a simple text message.
As I penned today’s list, so many iterations of despair came to mind:
- a children’s choir member who lost a parent overnight
- another child’s critically ill father now in ICU
- a child and his family who recently moved to another country, leaving his school and church friends behind
This is just one ensemble, and only part of their needs. My prayer is that those children will recall lessons from Ezekiel and will discover the resurrection hope of Easter in these most difficult days.
Let us never lose sight of Easter, regardless of trials, dry seasons, and hardships. May we hold tightly to the hope of the resurrection, knowing that God keeps His promises – He always has, He always will!
I 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.
—Ezekiel 37:14
