By
the Spirit of the Lord, Ezekiel had an unforgettable vision. The
grisly scene of bones scattered across a valley might seem a
terrifying nightmare, with the evidence of death all around. But God
turned that valley of the shadow of death into a place of life. The
dry, scattered bones began rattling and joining together, and soon
they were covered by muscles and skin. And when the breath of life
entered the people’s remade bodies, they sprang to life again.
God
said this was a sign for his people, who thought they were dead,
dried up, cut off, and without hope in the world. They were exiled
from their land as punishment for generations of sinning against God.
But he promised to restore them to himself by putting his Spirit in
them and giving them new life.
God
accomplished this in surprising ways through his Son, Jesus Christ.
He came to pay for human sin by giving up his own life and then
rising from the dead. Then God’s Spirit came to breathe new life in
us, guiding us to know the Lord and trust in him for forgiveness and
salvation. As Paul put it, though we were “without hope and without
God in the world,” he “made us alive with Christ even when we
were dead” in our “transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1,
4-5, 12). And one day, when Jesus returns, we will also rise from our
graves to live with him! (See 1 Thessalonians 4-5; Revelation
21-22.)