Kingdom Harbor

Day of Pentecost: Ezekiel 37:1-10

I sometimes get sucked into HGTV shows on home remodel projects. There’s something deeply satisfying watching an old, ramshackle house be stripped down to the “bones” and then brought back to life with fresh imagination, architectural genius and a lot of money!

My favorite part is when they show viewers at home the full color, 3D renderings of the new design. We ooh and awe at the creative vision and unforeseen potential of the old and outdated home. 

Now, can you imagine if instead they just had an architect describing with words alone what the renovated home will look like? Of course not! “Viewers” (note that word) tune in to see and watch the project unfold. So they show us with dynamic visualization software the finished project before they even begin, and we then come along on the journey and share in the joy of seeing the vision realized. At the end of each episode, we are shown the split screen with before and after photos, and we turn off the TV with the deep satisfaction of having seen the dead bones of an old house come alive again.

God designed human beings to experience the world with all five senses, and to visualize and then actualize new possibilities by harnessing the creative power of imagination. Artists know this. Architects live this. Filmmakers relish this. Advertisers exploit this. Psychotherapists utilize this. 

Tragically, the church of the past three centuries has often ignored or dismissed the role of imagination and visualization in worship, prayer and faith formation. People file into the pews on Sundays and instead of being invited to visualize dead things coming alive, or to experience prayer with all five senses, people are bombarded with a torrent of words. Words of Scripture read. Words of hymns sung. Words of spiritual truth preached. Words, words, words. 

I love all of these word-rhythms and lettered-liturgies, and they have all been a rich part of the church’s worship through the centuries as they continue to be central today. But this is the spiritual equivalent of watching the home renovation program on TV and instead of imagining the raw potential, seeing the creative process unfold with 3D renderings, and watching the project unfold with our eyes, we are just met with fancy words trying to describe the grand renovation. Ironically, the Word of God itself insists on inviting us into a more dynamic, multi-sensory, eye-popping and spine-tingling visionary approach to faith. 

In this week’s Old Testament lectionary text for Pentecost Sunday, Ezekiel 37 overwhelms our senses providing a dynamic visionary experience of God’s transforming power and life-giving breath. This time we’re not restoring the bones of an old Victorian home, but renovating the heart of dead souls and a devastated nation. Now God could have simply stuck to the facts and inspired Ezekiel to just write down the necessary intellectual information, namely: God will restore the fortunes of his people in an act of spiritual revival.

Instead, God gave Ezekiel a powerful vision, and his multi sensory vision continues to inspire and move others who read and ponder it today. As you read the well-known passage below, note the vivid detail that engages all the senses. This text wants to do more than describe in words an abstract truth about God; it wants to evoke your imagination, transport you to the valley of dry bones, and show you a full-color visualization of what spiritual restoration can look like when we let the breath of God into our lives. 

“The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones… Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD…. So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude” (Ezekiel 37:1-10). 

Can you not hear the noise and feel the rattling? Can you not smell the wind and see the sinews and skin growing over the dry bones? Do you not shudder in both awe and fear as an army of former skeletons rises up and begins to march? Do you dare imagine yourself into this remarkable scene? If so, where are you in this animated film playing between your ears? Are you a pile of dry, dead bones lying helpless on the ground in need of spiritual, emotional, relational, or physical revival? 

I once fell headlong into this vision and spent about a year stumbling around in the valley of dry bones. In my imagination, I was in the shoes of Ezekiel. The dry bones represented a sense of spiritual apathy in my hometown, God’s desire to bring revival to local churches, and my call to plant a new church. For months I walked around town at night, under the stars, praying for the four winds to come and for the breath of God to help us successfully plant MainStreet Covenant Church. 

On a fateful evening in the Fall of 2010, we held a rally in the auditorium at the high school where we would share the vision of the new church and invite people to join us helping realize it. As the worship band played and people filtered into the seats, I stood backstage in terror. I was searching for the perfect words, trying to prepare an electrifying rally cry, a clear and compelling sales pitch, and a soul-stirring sermon that would move hearts to join our launch team. God gave me none of those. 

Instead, He invaded my imagination and pulled me out of the Western suburbs and placed me into the valley of dry bones with Ezekiel. When I eventually came out on stage, still shaking in my shoes, I did my best to paint a vivid picture of a city full of dry and dead bones awaiting God’s enlivening breath. With all my might and all my heart, I invited people to call out to God for his Breath to come and revive spiritual dry churches and spiritually dead hearts. I prayed for God to raise up an army of volunteers to join us in the work of organizing a new church together. I have a short video clip of this fateful moment, and watching it again today stirred up all kinds of emotions.

I can’t speak for others, but I didn’t just read the words of this text that night. I entered into the text and the text took on flesh and blood in me. I felt the wild rushing wind on that stage and I felt the rattling of bones as God rattled my heart for lost people. I saw with my mind’s eye and visualized with Scripture-soaked imagination a church—a Body—comprised of all kinds of bones rising up from unlikely soil and would be joined together with sinews, flesh and skin in coming days and years.

I saw the future that day, and that future became a reality, in part, because it first existed in vivid color in my heart, mind and imagination. Ever since God poured out his Spirit on Pentecost, God continues to “give life to the dead and call into being things that were not” (Rom. 4:17) precisely because still today “young men see visions and old men dream dreams” (Acts 2:17). Ultimately, that visualized future stood up on its feet and marched into reality because God inspired it and chose to breathe life into it. I can’t believe that was almost 14 years ago as I prepare to share this text again this coming Sunday.

Friends, while we might enjoy escaping reality by tuning into reality TV shows about other people’s home renovation projects, I suspect the only TV channel Heaven will get will feature non-stop stories of renovated souls and transformed lives. We are God’s precious renovation projects, and if we’re going to realize God’s dream for our best future self, we need to begin by asking God to capture our imaginations, and give us a clear visualization of the great work He and His Holy crew are up to.

Please, God, give it to us in beautiful, full color 3D renderings. I call this image of our future self-in-Christ our Imago Vita—a vivid, colorful, inspiring image of the life God has always desired for us and designed us for. So, I pray:

Gracious God, come from the four winds, 

O breath, and breathe upon this Imago Vita, 

so that it might become a living reality!

Amen.