This morning, I want to talk about revival. Have you

ever been to a revival? In the small town where our

family lived until I was in fourth grade, a group of

churches would come together the first week of

August every summer. These small congregations

would pool what resources they had to rent a big

tent. We would send out fliers and hang posters and

invite each of the pastors in that small community

to participate. Now, my dad got to preach one night

every year, but it was Ivan Lowery I really wanted to

hear. Ivan Lowery was the pastor of the Mt. Vernon

Presbyterian Church just about two miles away from

our congregation, and Pastor Ivan, especially to an

eight-year-old kid, was larger than life. He had one of

those booming, voice-of-God preacher voices. The

power of his proclamation and the poetry of his words

would fill that tent like an earthquake. And all of us

would be there together, sweating in the humidity of

a southern July night as Ivan Lowery delivered the

message. Now I’m sure I’d heard the story of Ezekiel

before, likely in Sunday school, but it was Ivan Lowery

who brought that story to life for me as a kid. He

said this story was the first revival. He explained that

the word means “to live again.” And then that’s the

invitation that Pastor Ivan, whose congregation had

been founded by former slaves in 1870, gave us over

and over again. He said it dozens of times. Come back

to life. Come back to life. Come back to life.

And so, this morning I want to talk about revival.

Mortal, can these bones live?

In the words of our nine-year-old son Samuel, this

scene is spooky—Ezekiel led to the middle of a dark

valley filled with dry bones, lifeless and long gone.

But this is not some random assortment of

anonymous skeletons we’re talking about. God tells

us, tells the prophet, whose they are—these are the

bones of your people. The whole house of Israel. The

whole community of faith. These bones belong to

you. A dusty, deadly desert filled with lost friends and

former glory. These are your bones.

The ones that have been crushed by oppression.

Beaten down and left for dead. The context of the

passage is collective crisis. This shadowy valley, the

ultimate vision of human disaster. And so, the question

God asks the prophet is both urgent and uncertain.

Mortal, can these bones live?

If you’ve been in the valley, you understand the

question. For some of us it is a passing place of

temporary discomfort, a waystation on the wilderness

journey. But for others, the valley is home. The

conditions are chronic. The pain is permanent.

The bones belong to us. They belong to those

who have been crushed under the weight of it all.

The bones belong to congregations once filled on

Sundays with faithful souls and now struggling for

weekly survival. These bones belong to families

who come home from low wage jobs to find eviction

notices posted on doors and empty refrigerators. They

belong to faithful souls raised in the church, where

they were told they were loved just as they are and

then turned away because of who they are.

These bones belong to us. They belong to our

siblings in Christ whose lives are made difficult by the

circumstances of their birth, the color of their skin,

the language they speak, or the place they call home.

These bones belong to us because we, too, are part

of a world grown weary by division, distraction, and

destruction of what matters most—that torn fabric of

community, the sting of isolation, the corrosive effect

of anger and distrust.

Mortal, can these bones live?

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.

Bookends of divine encounter.

Question: Can these bones live?

Answer: I will put my spirit within you.

The space between the question and the promise

is where we spend our lives. And so, what does

faithful living look like between the question and the

promise? What is the work of Jesus followers in this

zone of the unknown, this arena of liminality, this gap

between what is and what could be?

Can these bones live?

The question is not rhetorical. It invites honest,

vulnerable soul-searching. It goes to the heart of who

we are. These bones belong to us. What of life is left in

them? Afterall, they’re good bones. They’ve just aged

a bit, depleted by the decades. They’re good bones

but so dry and disconnected. They’re good bones, but

to tell the truth, they haven’t moved in years.

Can these bones live?

What is begging to be born in the dusty pile? What is

waiting expectantly for a burst of life? Ezekiel answers

God’s question with a prayer I hear in a voice of

desperation. O Lord God, you know.

This is when the miraculous movement begins. It

happens when this human agent of divine possibility

speaks hope into a valley of despair, speaks life into

the shadow of death.

Speak to the bones, God says.

Tell them. Tell them it is not over yet. Tell them there is

still work for them to do, still life for them to live, still joy

for them to experience. It occurs to me that God could

have used any means of restoration, but the choice of

the Divine is to empower the human voice as a channel

for sacred truth. Only then, when the prophet speaks,

does life begin to stir in those old bones.

The core conviction of our shared faith—the rock on

which we stand when all else fades and fails—is the

sturdy belief in a God who brings life out of death. We

are a resurrection people. We worship and seek to

follow a Risen Lord, and so we know deep in our souls

and in our collective memory that these dry bones

can live—but only if the Spirit of God is breathed

afresh in the valley of death. Revival.

I want to be clear. If we do not believe that God can

bring life out of death, then the church of Jesus Christ

has nothing to offer. Nothing to offer a context, a

culture, a country that looks like that valley of driedup bones. We should simply close our doors and

distribute our assets.

But, if resurrection is our message, then ours is an

essential voice of prophetic power the world must

hear. I hope you know where I stand. I trust that the

Spirit of God can, does, and will resurrect the bones of

what has been, into a life we could not imagine. I trust

that there is always hope because God just keeps

breathing new life into old bones.

Can these bones live?

Yes, I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.

There it is. Revival.

You shall live again. Why? Because God has work for

you to do. Friends, this is no time to deny it, hide it,

reject it, or ignore it. God has work for us to do.

And it’s time to come back to life. Time for bold steps.

Time for courageous faith. Time to listen to that voice

that whispers to you in the middle of the night—this

is the moment, your one chance at life on this earth.

Don’t simply wallow in the valley of dusty bones and

miss it.

God gives a spirit of life. To refuse it is to reject

resurrection. To accept it is to join God on a journey

that will transform you. You’ll lose some things and

grieve the losses. Redemption does not come without

risk and real cost. But the abundant life that awaits us

is worth it all.

I will put my spirit within you, and you will be revived.

You will discover a life you didn’t know you could

have, a purpose you thought had passed you by, a

power beyond your capacity to explain it.

Yes, my friends, we know the valley because the

bones belong to us. They are our people. People who

contemplate ending their lives rather than living with

the pain of rejection. Imagine that. People who grieve

unthinkable loss because of violence we have come

to call normal or acceptable. These bones belong

to us. People whose days pass without meaningful

interaction. These bones belong to us. People whose

nights are filled with fear about what tomorrow may

bring. Their bones belong to us.

We know this valley and we know the call. Speak to

the bones. Speak to your people. Tell them about a

God whose grace is beyond their comprehension,

whose love is without condition. Tell them about a

God who knows just what to do with a pile of bones.

Find the courage to speak hope into despair and truth

into lies.

You know the call. Not an easy task. Not a superficial

message. I’m talking about revival today. To live again

we must speak into this dry valley. We must speak

truth. Friends, the word of God and the Christian

Gospel have nothing in common with derisive rhetoric

and pernicious policies that hurt people God loves

even when that rhetoric is thinly veiled in pseudoreligious language. We will not find life by attacking

each other. We will not find life by bullying the

weak, demeaning our differences, or spouting selfrighteous slander. Nor will we find life in half-hearted

commitment to disciplines of discipleship. We will not

find life in some vague spirituality that asks nothing

concrete of us. If we are unwilling to give ourselves

fully to God without counting the cost, it will never be

enough and it will always feel like too much.

There is another way. The image of God in every

human encounter. Revival. A stirring of life in the

valley of death. Flesh joined to the bones. Breath in

the lungs. Fire in the heart. I can hear the voice of Ivan

Lowery ringing in the ears of an eight-year-old child.

Speak to the bones.

Come back to life.

God is not finished yet.

Can these bones live? Surely you know. Amen.