11d • 📖 Scripture & Devotion
Spiritual Boost 04.12.26
The Year of “Re”
Resurrect: Can These Bones Live?
Part Three: The Weight of Friday
“And He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’”
So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”
Ezekiel 37:3
Can these bones live? For the last few weeks, we have been asking the question that God presented to Ezekiel. During that time, the children of Israel were feeling their worst. They were feeling hopeless and lost. Even though they had a promise given to them through Abraham, they still felt defeated. Sometimes in our lives, we feel that as well. God has sent us on a new mission or given us a new assignment. Maybe we started a new business, started a family, entered into a new relationship or marriage, or any of those things, and yet things do not seem right. So we ask: Can these bones live?
In the beginning, we have those who cheer for us. People are there. Support is present. It feels like everything we need is in place. Then something suddenly changes, and the weight of it all becomes heavy. It begins to weigh on us. It feels as though friends have deserted us, and no one is there to help us. In that place, we find ourselves asking God, “Can this cup be removed?”
We looked at how Jesus Christ also faced that moment in the Garden of Gethsemane as He went to fulfill His purpose by dying on the cross for the sins of the world. Even Jesus had those who loved Him, who cheered for Him, and then turned and ran from Him and deserted Him. He asked if this cup could pass. In other words, I do not want to do this. Can we come up with something else? This hurts. This is hard. This is difficult. However, Jesus came to His nevertheless. And to keep going in the face of dry bones, we too must come to our "nevertheless".
So we find ourselves on Friday, the day He was crucified, where He was whipped and beaten. Sometimes we feel as though life is whipping us. The storms of life are beating against us, and sometimes we feel like we cannot go on. Yet Jesus took the cross, His assignment, and carried it. Although He was tired, sore, beaten, hurting, and in pain, not just physically but in His soul, He still went on that long road, the Via Dolorosa, to fulfill what God had placed within Him. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:2 that for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross.
Friday carried weight. It carried the weight of pain, the weight of rejection, the weight of silence, and the weight of what looked like the end. What God had spoken now stood in the face of what looked like defeat. What had been promised now looked like it had been cut off. Everything that could press against purpose did. These bones are actually dead. Yet, just as Jesus did, for the joy that was set before Him, we must keep going. In the valley of the dry bones, the assignment and the promise are still there.
Has God forgotten? The crowd has changed its chant, the friends have dispersed, and the death of a dream, the death of your promise, is hanging in the air.
As Friday carries on, the weight is not lifting. The pain has not eased. The sky is dark. We are moving into Saturday. The weight is still here, and the story is not finished.
Stay locked in for our next devotional, The Silence of Saturday.
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Spiritual Boost 04.12.26
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