Today’s reading is full of hope for a hopeless people. Note that God’s plan for His people’s restoration didn’t simply include resettling them in the Promised Land like when He led them out of Egypt. Recall the book of Deuteronomy, Moses’ final words to the nation given as they camped on the threshold of the Promised Land at the end of their forty-year sentence in the wilderness. In it God through Moses warned His people not to get so comfortable living in the blessings of the Promised Land that they neglected God, which would lead to forgetting Him. By Ezekiel’s time they had done the very thing that God had warned them not to do, and now were suffering the consequences. Since that plan for God to enjoy relationship with people had failed, He didn’t intend to follow it again. Now His plan included resettling, but it also added giving them new hearts and putting His Spirit in them so that they would be moved to follow His ways. Following His ways would not be a matter of checking off the boxes, doing the minimal as if it were a chore; rather, following God’s ways would be their hearts’ desire. We all know the delight of doing something that is our heart’s desire. The New Testament teaches that if we belong to Jesus, God’s Spirit lives in us, guiding and speaking comfort to us. Think about the great salvation we have received in light of how He describes His people’s transformations.
Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones has been the subject of so many sermons and devotionals that I don’t need to explain that. My guess would be that familiarity has bred contempt in readers. However, each read is an opportunity to appreciate anew the hope God intended for us to know and grow through this vision. If you are a dry bone, ask God to restore you to a fully fleshed-out living, breathing God-knowing Christ-follower.