Ez 37:1-14 / Mt 22:34-40
There’s one particularly thorny problem we face in trying to come to terms with how utterly dependent we are and how unnecessary to the operation of the larger world, and that’s the fact that, as long as we can remember, we’ve been right here. We cannot remember a time when we weren’t. It’s hard to imagine our part of the world without us! But it once was, and it will be again.
That can make us feel very small, and could even inspire a sense of despair. But it shouldn’t, because tiny and dependent as we may be, we are special, as today’s Old Testament reading underscores. In the fantastic scene in which the Lord is reassembling an army of living men from dry bones, Ezekiel tells us that it is the Spirit himself who breathes upon them and brings them to life.
Frail though we be, it is God’s Spirit who has enlivened us and who will keep us alive long after everything we know in this world has passed away. The Spirit has lived at the very center of our being from our first moment and will live there always. If we trust that, we shall never be without hope or joy or peace, and we shall never walk alone.
Have you trusted the Spirit enough to let the Spirit guide you? Isn’t it foolish to try to walk alone when the Spirit is at your side?
