Dry Bones = Live Bones!
Laslo & Coralyn Medyesy – Hungary
Whenever my journeys have taken me back to the Holy Land I’ve liked to revisit and meditate in places where, by Biblical accounts and local traditions, God’s overwhelming presence was experienced. Being in such a location is not only helpful to better understand the episode that once took place, but, for even a short time, one can feel included in the extraordinary event.
Whenever my journeys have taken me back to the Holy Land I’ve liked to revisit and meditate in places where, by Biblical accounts and local traditions, God’s overwhelming presence was experienced. Being in such a location is not only helpful to better understand the episode that once took place, but, for even a short time, one can feel included in the extraordinary event.
Such a place is the Kidron brook now in Jerusalem. This small creek, just a wadi or seasonal rivulet, flows in a deep valley at the feet of Mount Olive and Mount Moriah and continues under the Kings’ tombs. Sitting at its edge one can glimpse the nearby Garden of Gethsemane and the grave stone covered side of Mt. Olive, where trumpeting angels will announce the arrival of our resurrections and the Final Judgment. Opposite this sight are the mighty still-standing walls of the Second Temple with their sealed Golden Gate and the infamous Pinnacle of Temptation.
Through countless millenniums, this small place has witnessed the ebb and flow of history, the coming and going of innumerable armies, kings, prophets, saints and sinners and of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Biblical time the Kidron flowed with red water because it served as a run-off for the blood of the sacrificial animals from the Temple. When King Josias burned the wood images of false gods, those ashes were thrown into this creek.
One early morning I followed a narrow path, off the road to Jericho, which took me to the Kidron in the bottom of its deep valley. The steep descent gave me the feeling of moving back in time in a sacred place where prophet Ezekiel, according to tradition, in the 6th century BC experienced a profound vision, hence influencing the theology of our Judeo-Christian faith. In Chapter 37 one reads of this magnificent revelation, – the ultimate hope of every mortal, – of the resurrection of the body when all dry bones will rise again.
Slowly, during my long and undisturbed meditation, I became aware that an unusually shaped and colored object was lying at my feet among the pebbles. Careful digging soon revealed a long object. To the best of my knowledge it was an arm bone, from the upper arm of a human skeleton.
The impact of that realization was overwhelming. I was standing where Ezekiel had once stood, feeling reassured that the prophet’s vision was still pertinent, that all bones, including my own and the one lying on the ground, share God’s promise that there will be a resurrection.
Above the Kidron on the side of the valley I prepared a small grave, and wrapping that bone in a handkerchief I buried it and covered it with stones against scavenging animals.
Then, in that special place a short funeral service seemed appropriate. So once again the ancient valley echoed the greatest promise to mortals:
“ O dry bones, listen to the words of God, See! I am going to make you live and breathe again!
I will replace the flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you shall live and know I am the Lord.”
Laslo Medyesy
Laslo Medyesy is a missionary with the Reformed Church in Hungary, based in Budapest, Hungary. He serves as professor of theology in the Department of Theology of the Gaspar Karoli Reformed University in Budapest.