Tagged: victory

Ezekiel 37:1-14

This text is used for the Lectionary Year A on April 2, 2017.

On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela walked out of the Victor Verster Prison after 27 ½ years. His wife holding one hand and the other hand held high in a closed fist of victory. Certainly, there were days of hopeless darkness, but that day he embraced his freedom. He was a man who was prepared to die for the anti-apartheid efforts in South Africa but was breathing new life.

Body language can tell you all you need to know at times. Mandela’s posture was victorious, but other times it was probably closer to the fetal position. The prophet Ezekiel is speaking to a people whose demeanor, attitude, and hope had dried up. Their hope was like dried, dead bones.

This people of promise, God’s chosen people, had been enslaved in Egypt, freed, wilderness wanders, conquers, occupiers, and now foreigners. They have been exiled in three different waves as consequence for their intentional, calculated, and disobedient worship of false gods. The posture of the people was marked by disobedience more than faithfulness.

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