Breath in the Valley

“Then 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.’” (Ezekiel 37:9, NRSVUE)

The last time I preached on this passage, I brought in the spinal column model from my chiropractor. Even though it was a complete skeleton, I asked people to imagine the vertebrae and disks scattered across a valley. That’s the world Ezekiel walks into — not order, but devastation. Bones long dead. Hope long gone.

Why were the bones dry in Ezekiel’s day? Because exile had lasted long enough to wear them down but not long enough to bring them home. Jerusalem had fallen, their world had collapsed, and they were living in the long middle — the place where identity erodes and promises feel delayed beyond endurance. 

I wonder if that’s why the bones feel dry in our world too. It’s not that people haven’t heard about God — they hear about God all the time. They hear God invoked on television by preachers with shaky theology, and they hear God used as a weapon by political voices looking for power. They’ve been lambasted with a misrepresented God, talked at more than listened to, and warned more than welcomed. You can see the dryness in the weariness of people who’ve been told God is angry but rarely that God is merciful. They haven’t been invited into a relationship with the God who actually loves them.

Ezekiel’s vision reminds us that the breath that brings life is not ours. It is the Spirit’s — the wind that blows where it will. We don’t animate anyone. We don’t convert anyone. We don’t resurrect anyone. Our calling is simply to stand in the valley, to speak hope into places that look hopeless, and to trust that God will breathe where God chooses. It’s the same truth I wear on a sweatshirt at our Saturday ministry — an empty cross with the words, “I can’t, but I know a Guy.” That’s Ezekiel’s posture in the valley, and it’s ours too.

That’s what it means to prophesy today: to stand beside the dry places in people’s lives and dare to say that God is not finished. We can’t heal or make whole — but God can. To speak words that make room for the Spirit. To invite people not just to hear about God, but to know God — to experience the breath that restores life.

Holy Spirit, breathe where we cannot. Breathe into the dry places of our world and the weary corners of our hearts. Teach us to speak hope with humility, to stand with those who feel scattered, and to trust your life‑giving wind. Amen.

Grace & Peace,

Pastor Tim