Lent 5 A -Ezekiel 37:1-14

Ezekiel 37:1-14

“Mortal, can these bones live?” is a question in a dream sequence so it would be a mistake to imagine a valley of bones literally putting on flesh and blood even though we certainly hope our dry bones will one day be resurrected in whatever valley they eventually come to rest. But for the first readers of these words the literal interpretation was that their figurative dry bones held captive in the valley of Babylon would one day put on the sinews and flesh and blood that would finally breathe freedom in the land of promise. In a real sense “by the waters of Babylon we sat and wept” (Psalm 137) would experience “the ransomed of Lord will return unto Zion with singing…” (Isaiah 35:10) That may have been the dream sequence that inspired James Weldon Johnson (1871 – 1938) to pen “Dem Dry Bones” anticipating the day when “I have a dream” (Dr. Martin Luther King) was spoken in the place of power and “Let Freedom Ring” animated the dry bones of an oppressed people to demand equality in the “home of the brave and the land of the free.”