Life Comes from God Ezekial 37:1-14 John 11:1-45

Dry bones laid in a valley. The prophet Ezekiel was led by God back and forth among the bones. It would have been a haunting place to wander even if God had called you there. God asked the prophet a question,

"Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know." Ezekiel 37:3 NIV

God asked the question and Ezekiel responded in faith. God alone knows the potential for life after death for anything in creation.

In John 11 two sisters grieved over their brother. They believed that if Jesus had been there their beloved, Lazarus, wouldn't have died but would have been made whole. Jesus came to weep with them; then he did a new thing. He called for the stone to be moved and he called for Lazarus to come out. And the man covered in grave clothes and smelling of decay got up. The power of life to come after death is God's alone to share.

God gave Ezekiel a new vision of bones rising and life returning where death had been in charge before. The prophet spoke for God a word of new hope and new knowledge of God's power,

They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. Ezekiel 37:11-13

There's a yearning to know the full power of God. Both in Ezekiel's vision of the bones and in Lazarus' death the only way to know the full power of God over death is to go through death and be brought to new life. We can't escape our mortality by our faith; but we believe that we will see our perishable bodies replaced with the imperishable ones.