Introduction

A flute is made to play beautiful music. But without a flutist, it’s just a hollow piece of wood or metal with some holes. But it only achieves its purpose when its master blows into it. God’s people are kind of like flutes in that way. Like a flute, we can’t accomplish our purpose without the breath of the master. But when our master blows, we can also do beautiful things.

However, while a flute doesn’t care much if it gets played, when we aren’t being ‘played,’ something important atrophies inside of us. Some of us experience this as ennui, a sense that we’re going through the motions of our lives. We do what we were taught we should do. Maybe we get married, have kids, and hold down a job. We take annual vacations, make our mortgage payments, and save for retirement. All good things, but not enough.

Even when the lives we live seem pleasant enough on a day-to-day basis, something inside us knows we were meant for more. This is because we are living according to the wisdom of this age, and we’re not really living. Indeed, this is the warning that the scriptures gives us, but they also give us hope. The breath of God that blew into the dust to make a living being can breathe into us and give us the life of the new creation. God’s spirit can transform the lives of brokenness an drudgery into something far greater. It might not always be comfortable (in fact, it usually isn’t), but it will never be meaningless. God wants to give us a new life, but will we accept it?

I. The Situation: Dry Bones

The Jews surely felt a sense of meaninglessness when they lived as exiles in Babylon. They had been given great promises by God, but because of their disobedience, they had fallen far. God called Abraham to follow him and promised that his descendants would be his special possession, and live in a promised land. Those descendants were enslaved in Egypt. But God rescued them, brought them to Mt. Sinai, and entered into a covenant relationship with them. At Mt. Sinai, they became the nation of Israel. 40 years later, they took possession of that Promised Land. Their collective identity was grounded in their special relationship with God and with living in the land. 

But the special relationship with God came with some rules—a lot of rules: 613 of them. If the people followed the rules, they would be blessed. If they failed to keep them, they would be cursed. If they really blew it, the worst of these promised curses was exile. And that’s what had happened when they found themselves in Babylon. They had fallen so short that God ejected them from their promised land. The Covenant was broken. While individual Jews survived the ordeal, their nation is functionally dead. The exiles despaired. The calling that had once given them a sense of purpose—being God’s people, a light to the nations—was gone. Now their lives lacked any transcendent purpose. It’s to these people that God’s prophet Ezekiel brings a word of rebuke and comfort. The Hebrew word ruah means wind, breath and spirit. So any time you see any of those three words here, it’s the same word in the original language. They function as an elaborate word-play:

The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit [ruah] of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?” 

“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.” 

Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath [ruah] into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath [ruah] into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ” 

So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath [ruah] in them. 

Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds [ruah], son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath [ruah] , from the four winds! [ruah] Breathe [ruah] into these dead bodies so they may live again.’ ” 

So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath [ruah] came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army. 

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. I will put my Spirit [ruah] in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!’ ”(Ezekiel 37:1–14, NLT).

The Jews despaired because their purpose and calling had been taken away. But God tells them that even though it looks like their nation (and their purpose with it) is dead, he’s the kind of God who can bring life even to what is dead. He’s not done with their nation.

God was true to his word. Babylon was defeated by the Persians, whose emperor freed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild a temple to honour their God. But this passage inspired the people to believe that God’s plan was more than just relocating people. Something in the people was unable to faithfully carry out the law. The exile was inevitable. Something needed to change so that the people could live with their Holy God.

In Ezekiel’s vision, God promises to put his Spirit (ruah) in the people, This parallels God’s creation of the first person: “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (Genesis 2:7, NLT). God seemed to be talking about a new kind of life, one freed from the sin that constantly derailed their story.

Now, many of us may feel a bit like the Jewish exiles. We live in a reality that sin has distorted. We often lack a sense that we have a transcendent purpose. We long to live a meaningful life that embodies our true purpose. To go back to the opening metaphor, we long for the breath—the ruah, the spirit—to blow into us and make music. We long for the restoration of our created purpose.

II. The Hope: Resurrection

A. The Injustice of Death

One of the great obstacles to living the kind of life we were designed to live is death. For anyone who has faced fears of their own mortality or who has lost someone dearly loved, we know that, although death is all around us, It can’t be a part of God’s good design for the world.

The Jews of Jesus’ day certainly felt that way. In their history, many Jews had died for doing what God had commanded them to do. In one such instance the king Antiochus IV, put people to death for circumcising their children, or for refusing pagan worship rituals. The death of so many Jews for faithfully following God’s decrees was incompatible with God’s justice, unless God raised the dead.

This experience of persecution led most Jews to the conclusion that God would raise the righteous to a new life. They believed that a great day of God’s judgment, the Day of the Lord, would finally end the wickedness of the world, and that God would raise the righteous to live with him and enjoy the renewed creation. That was the hope. Was it more than mere theological speculation?

Scriptural evidence in the OT was pretty thin. The Pharisees and popular piety said the resurrection was going to happen. The priestly aristocracy—the Sadducees—scoffed at such ideas. In light of such thin scriptural evidence, could the Jews hold on to the hope when things were hard? We see a definitive answer in the raising of Lazarus.

B. The Raising of Lazarus

One day received a message informing him that his dear friend Lazarus was deathly ill. We might expect Jesus to immediately set out to rescue his companion. But Jesus delays, leaving two days later, after the Father reveals that Lazarus had died. Before making the journey, He tells the disciples that he’s going to go now, so that God can be glorified. We pick up the story after Jesus arrives in Bethany:

When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.” 

Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”

 “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.” [He will rise again in the resurrection on the last day]. 

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” 

“Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God” (John 11:20–27, NLT).

After this exchange, Mary arrives and also has an encounter with Jesus.

When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. [The anger is directed at the situation, not at his friends for grieving] “Where have you put him?” he asked them. 

They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

 Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.” 

Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”

Mary and Martha believed Lazarus would be raised at the resurrection of the dead. That was their hope, but in raising Lazarus to new life, Jesus takes what might be a flimsy hope and makes it strong. 

Jesus demonstrates he has the authority to raise the dead. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that Jesus will raise every person who loves him a few days after they die. But it does show us that death is not an obstacle for Jesus. This, of course, prefigures Jesus resurrection shortly afterward. But it also clarifies things: It’s not just perfect people like Jesus who can be raised. Jesus has authority to raise all of those who love him. So while death remains a part of our world, we can know that the brokenness doesn’t get the final say. Death’s days are numbered.

When death is no longer the end of our story, it frees us to live differently. When our story is going to end in death, we pursue earthly glory because it is the only glory we will ever know. But when we know that we will be raised by Jesus, we can humble ourselves, In Philippians 2 Paul tells us that God glorified Jesus because he humbled himself. If we humble ourselves, we know that at the resurrection, God will also glorify us.

When we believe death is the end of our story, we do everything to avoid dying. When we believe in the promise of resurrection, things change. While we’re obviously still not in a hurry to die, we can face even mortal dangers with courage.

During the black death of the 14th century, people had a good chance of survival—about 75%—if they were cared for,but a poor chance of survival—about 20%—if they were abandoned. Usually, though, when someone came down with the black death, those around them fled to avoid catching it. So many died unnecessarily. But pious Christians stayed to look after their neighbours. They paid the price, getting sick themselves. But, being cared for by other Christians, most of them survived, and developed immunity. Of course, they didn’t understand germ theory, but they were able to care for their neighbours at tremendous risk to themselves, because they knew that they knew that God wouldn’t abandon them to the grave.

III. The Calling: Life By the Spirit

For many who claim Jesus as Saviour, it’s enough that God solves the “death problem.” For some, faith in Jesus serves as fire insurance. It’s insurance against judgment that allows the spiritual cover to live however they please. This kind of faith is worthless.

When the spirit of God gives us new life, its begins to change our lives here and now. After Jesus raised Lazarus, he instructed those around him to take the graveclothes off of him. This serves as a picture for the discipling mission of the church in this life. The idolatry and sin that make this life feel so empty are the clothing of death, from which Jesus sets us free. Even if we don’t receive eternal life in its fullness until the age to come, It begins its work of transformation on this side of the grave. This world is not heaven’s waiting room. It is a place where God’s people learn to make the music that happens when God’s wind—his Spirit—blows through them.

Paul explains how this involves a Spirit-led reorientation away from the things we pursued in our old lives towards a new set of priorities, but also the promise of God for those who follow the Spirit’s leading.

Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. 

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you (Romans 8:5–11, NLT).

When God’s wind blows into us, the focus of our lives will change. The old life, with its priorities and goals—a life that leads nowhere—begins to fade. We’re given a new life focused on the things that please God. But this isn’t effortless. 

Unlearning our old way of living takes hard work. As they say, old habits die hard. Learning how to live the life of the Spirit is sort of like learning to dance to music with an unfamiliar time signature. Most of the music that feels familiar to us is in the 4/4 time signature. There’s also a 3/4 time signature (it has the waltz feel) or its faster cousin, 6/8. If you had to dance to songs in these time signatures, even if you had never heard the song before, it feels natural (as natural as dancing feels for you). But it would be different if you tried to dance to songs you didn’t know with unfamiliar time signatures,  Song like “Money” by Pink Floyd (7/4) or “The Day I Tried to Live” by Soundgarden (15/8) You might start to move only to get all tangled up because the beats don’t work the way you expect. It’s not that it would be impossible to dance to these songs; it wouldn’t feel natural until you’d had some practice.

In a similar way, leaning to dance to the time signature of the Holy Spirit doesn’t come naturally to those who have spent a lifetime dancing to the rhythms of life without the Spirit. What does this mean practically? It means that you don’t need to wait until after you die to begin enjoying some of the benefits of eternal life. But you likely won’t enjoy those benefits unless you allow the Spirit to recalibrate your values, hopes, and priorities.

God wants to be at the centre of your life. When we put something else in that place we become idolators. This happens when we try to get security, significance and belonging from created things rather than from the creator. The things we idolize might even be good things. Ancients, for example, often worshipped the sun, which is pretty important. but it is a gift from the creator, not the creator. We don’t worship the sun, but we might worship money, power, sex, status or leisure

If we don’t allow the Spirit to recalibrate our values, hopes, and priorities, God becomes a means to achieve an end: We use him to get the life we always wanted, to get the things we’re convinced will satisfy us. We might come to God hoping that he will get us that promotion at work, make our investments more successful, help us find a more attractive spouse, or guarantee us better health. We treat God as a good-luck charm who enables my idolatry. I suspect God takes a dim view of this. God doesn’t want to make our old life better; Jesus didn’t tell the crowd to get Lazarus some nicer graveclothes. Instead, he gives us a new life, where we are free from the power of idols.

When we learn to dance according to the rhythm of the Spirit, it means that we change the end goals of our lives. It means we open ourselves up to God’s life taking shape in us. While we once might have pursued the goal of career success (defined by advancement), now we might prusue faithfulness to God’s calling. In that world, if God calls you to work as a plumber, it would be a step down to be the prime minister. The life of God redirects us away from the constant pursuit of ease and comfort and towards personal transformation. So when hard things happen in life, I see them differently. The challenges become opportunities to learn patience, trust and hope. The difficult people teach me how to love. The end goal is to become like Jesus, not to have Jesus make my old goals easier to reach.

This isn’t for everyone. Some people balk at the idea that Jesus calls me to humble myself, to patiently endure, or to love sacrificially. But this is how we learn to become like Christ. And becoming like him is the purpose for which we were designed. We will never find satisfaction in the pursuit of earthly treasures. It’s not that all these things are bad in and of themselves, but they can’t bear the weight of being the central pursuit of our lives. That must be the pursuit of God.

When we align our lives with the desires of the Spirit, that’s when the new creation takes root within us. In this life, it means that we will find greater freedom from the power of sin that disenchants our lives, and causes suffering for our friends and neighbours. And this same power will raise us from death to new physical life just as it raised Jesus from death to life on the first Easter.

Conclusion

So today, if you’re feeling uninspired—that word literally means not blown into—know that God wants to turn your life into a beautiful song. He wants to free you from the fear of death. But he also wants you to reorder your life.

You may have been chasing things that cannot satisfy you, but, he wants to make you into an instrument of blessing for the world. This isn’t easy, but it is meaningful. And when you look back on your life, all the goals that you might have pursued will seem small when compared with the wonder of being an instrument that played the song of the Spirit for a lost and hurting world. And remember, the old goals of your old life will ultimately come to nothing, but the music that God makes through us will ring for an eternity.