I can never hear the first reading from Ezekiel with out the words of the Spiritual going through my head:
"Dem bones, dem bones dem dry bones, hear the word of the Lord."
Don’t you just love that first reading with those Oh! so vibrant images of the valley of dried bones coming back to life. It reads like a cinematic script despite being rather fanciful and I can see why it has been beloved by many film makers over the years. I don’t, however, think that we are expected to take the story literally but to read it as a metaphor and when placed alongside the Gospel reading the metaphor seems to explain itself.
What it is telling us is that we human beings do not exist as mere flesh and blood alone. We are more than the sum of our parts because we contain the Spirit of God. Genesis tells us that we are made in the image of God:
“26 Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; … 27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:26a & 27
and today’s readings can help us comprehend what that means. Our vital essence, our very being is of God. We are not God but we contain within us something of God that sets us apart from the rest of creation. We are God’s beloved because we contain something of God himself and God cannot reject us for to do so would be to reject something of himself as well. We, however, have to recognise that we contain that something of God’s very self deep within our being. We have to acknowledge that it is God who gives us life and puts before us ways of living that are creative and positive.
New life is always possible as Lazarus discovered but we can discover it too if we can recognise that God is at work within our very selves. God is always giving us the opportunity to make things anew, to grow and change and develop by growing into God’s self by letting his Spirit shape and mould us. All we have to do is say; ‘Yes!’ to God and to allow that Spirit to permeate our souls. Which in turn brings us to new life time and time again.