"Arise & Be..."

"Arise & Be…"

By:  KC Knippa

“And He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord GOD, you know…”  And then He said to me, ‘I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.’”   Ezekiel 27:5, 14

This past Sunday in our 11:00 worship service we introduced a new song entitled “Arise” by the band Flyleaf.  The song in itself can only be described as hauntingly beautiful, and in an equally beautiful way paralleled our first reading from Ezekiel 37:1-14 beyond what we had even hoped for.

For those of you that were not there, I will fill you in.  We began by explaining that the book of Ezekiel can be defined within the “apocalyptic” category of scripture… and I know what you’re thinking, and it does not mean that it is just about the end of the world.  What the word apocalyptic does mean however is that it is simply an “unveiling” or revealing something that we didn’t know before.  Because of this, both the reading and this song must be viewed in this light.

Now Ezekiel, a prophet from the Old Testament, was living in a very unpleasant time in Israel’s history and the things in which God told him to speak about were also not-so-fun.  The people Israel were exiled in a foreign land, once again under captivity, and away from the temple.  In many ways, they believed that their world was ending… they were a broken people who had lost all hope.

During his time as a prophet, Ezekiel had a few great visions from God.  The passage we focused on this week was the familiar vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.  In this vision, God showed Ezekiel a valley full of dead dry bones and commanded him to tell the bones to arise and be brought back to life… and through God, the bones were made new.

God continues, explaining to Ezekiel that these bones are like the Israelites… they believed that they too were dead and cut off from God.  But God shows that even when they thought this was the case, He still brings hope and life to His people.

So… where does this leave us?

In many ways, we are just like the Israelites.  Far too often we dwell on the fact that we are broken… living in a world full of hurt and pain.  We are nothing more than a dead, dry-boned people.  Have you ever felt this way?  Lost, without any hope?  Broken?  I know I have…                     

But, just as God showed Ezekiel in his vision… there is hope.  Even though we are dead, our hope has come through Christ and we, like the dry bones, are made new.  We are no longer dead and cut off from God, but made alive in Him.  He has brought an end to our suffering… our brokenness.  He calls us to hold on to this world that we remember because through Him, there is enough strength in us and hope left in this world to make it what we all dream it still can be.

Personally, I love how this song ends.  Much like the calling of Ezekiel, the song finishes with the command to “Arise and be all that you dreamed, all that you dreamed…”

I leave you all with the same call.  There is hope for this world… there is a hope for us.  All we need to do is to arise and be the people that God has made us to be in Him.

- KC