Today’s sermon on Ezekiel 37 sent me back to a song by the very late Mark Heard, called “The Dry Bones Dance.” If you recall, the very odd vision given the prophet in Ezekiel 37 was a vision of a valley of bones — the remains of his friends and family — being re-enfleshed and animated, given the breath of life, being reborn. The lesson: God’s words give life to dead people, to dead places, literally bring back from the dead those who are very, very dead.

In his song, Mark Heard sings “Every now and then I seem to dream these dreams/ Where the mute ones speak and the deaf ones sing/ Touching that miraculous circumstance/ Where the blind ones see and the dry bones dance.” What he points to is the idolatry of self that so many of us are trapped in without God — mute, deaf, and lifeless, “prisoners of the small worlds that orbit in our skulls.” And yet his dream is really the Gospel, the hope that dead men and dead places will once again live, “where the dead ones live and the hurt ones heal,” “where the orphans suckle and the slaves go free.”

I confess that a fatalistic demon regularly whispers to my heart, saying nothing changes, people don’t change, creation unwinds from entropy, and culture devolves, with no countervailing life-animating force. And yet scripture and history say otherwise. It’s in those times I pray “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” Like Ezekiel, I need a reminder that God has given us life-giving words that, once spoken, do not return void.

In another song off the same album, “Strong Hand of Love,” Heard sings “We can laugh and we can cry/ And never see the strong hand of love hidden in the shadows/ We can dance and we can sigh/ And never see the strong hand of love hidden in the shadows.” He reminds us that so much of what God does is hidden, a kingdom built in stealth. Outside our vision, things are happening, a re-animating Spirit is bringing new life.

To a hopeless people in exile, God says speak to the dead. That seems useless. God says “Can these bones live?” and Ezekiel says “O Lord God, only you know,” meaning only God can do it. The demon whispers “Can these bones live? Can people change? Can a culture be transformed? The only way to silence its petulance is to say three words: dry bones dance. He’ll remember, and flee.

[The video here is of poor quality but is of Mark's last performance, at Cornerstone Music Festival,  before his untimely death.]