Skeletons and CPR

“Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the wind. Prophesy, human, and say to the wind, ‘This is what the Lord God says: Wind, come from the four winds, and breathe on these people who were killed so they can come back to life.’”  So I prophesied as the Lord commanded me. And the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, a very large army.” Ezekiel 37:9, 10

I served a number of years as chaplain for our local Emergency Services. Every person on the crew was a volunteer and often was called out in the middle of the night to assist a crisis. From an elderly woman who stumbled down her stairs to a teenage girl with third degree burns over 70 percent of her body, these men and women showed themselves heroes time and time again. It was a privilege to serve them in their own hours of spiritual need.

Numerous lives were saved because of the readiness of people to leave the comfort of their home and head out on a call in a moment’s notice to any corner of our rural North Dakota county. The sparseness of the population plus harsh sub-zero winters made these Early Responders true life savers. I cannot count the times I saw them instantly begin CPR, tend to the surrounding family and communicate with the hospital with the least amount of anxiety. They were focused on one thing; keeping their clients alive and finding help as soon as possible.

God showed the prophet Ezekiel a scene right out of a chiller movie, an entire plain was strewn with human bones. They were dry, bleached by the sun, and completely separated from one another. Imagine a voice-over as the camera pulls back from a skull, then a handful more bones, then pulls back to the long panoramic shot of the entire valley, with desiccated bones filling the screen. The voice over, in a slow, low voice: “Can…these…bones…live?”

Riding to the scene in one of our ambulances and absorbing the entire scene, I would look to the driver and reply, “There is no hope here. Why were we even called out?” Ezekiel answers God’s question a bit more wisely, “Oh God…You know.”

The Lord then tells Ezekiel to preach. I’ve had a few congregations that fell asleep on me, but never one as dead as this scene! At least no one would heckle him. So Ezekiel obeys God, preaches to the wind and tells it to breathe life back into every dead person on the valley floor. “Come from the four winds, and breathe life back into these people.”

I appreciate Ezekiel’s obedience, and faith. There was nothing any human could do. Whatever happened to the people who occupied the valley before him, nothing then, or now, could bring life back to these sun-dried skeletons. Nothing, that is, except for the breath of God Himself.

As Ezekiel preaches God breathes life back into every skeleton. Bones rattled all across the valley as they were joined one to another. Then muscles are recreated, flesh covers the muscles and finally skin envelops each body. That scene of horror is turned to a place of miraculous new life. God, who is life Himself, turned dusty bones into lively human beings.

God continues to breathe life into dusty and dry lives even today. Just as CPR uses the breath of one person to infuse life into another, so God breathes new life into the dead and dried out areas of our live. What was once useless and lifeless can become alive and valuable when God breathes upon it.

God breathed on Adam and he became a living soul. Jesus breathed upon His disciples after His resurrection and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. No one but God Himself can turn the dry wilderness into a lush, life-filled forest. Because humanity has chosen its own way, death rules. Our best efforts, individually or corporately often fail desperately.

Those bones in the sun had no hope of ever being connected again, let alone becoming breathing men and women. Through Jesus, God desire to bring new life to all humanity. We are forgiven from our death-filled ways and filled with God’s own Spirit. Regenerated, we can learn to breathe the promised new life each day as we walk in the Spirit.

And, while you are celebrating the life He has given, you might consider preaching to the wind yourself. Watch what happens to the dry bones around you as you, yourself, are an agent of the Breath of Life.