Anyone who’s driven Kansas roads at night knows the feeling. You’re cruising along, and suddenly the road drops into a valley. The darkness seems to swallow your headlights. No streetlights, no house lights, just you and the black road ahead. Even familiar roads feel foreign in those valleys. You grip the wheel tighter, slow down, wonder if you’ll ever climb back into the light.
We’ve all been in valleys darker than any road. The phone call that changed everything. The diagnosis that stole your breath. The pink slip that ended decades of certainty. The marriage that slowly died despite desperate attempts to save it. The dream that withered into dust. Some of you are sitting in a valley right now, wondering if you’ll ever see light again.
During December, valleys feel deeper. Everyone else seems merry and bright while you’re just trying to make it through. Christmas cards show perfect families while yours is fractured. The holiday lights mock your darkness. Office parties celebrate while you grieve. The world sings “Joy to the World” while you can barely whisper “Help.” Advent candles promise hope while your life feels like a battlefield. The empty chair at your table shouts louder than any carol.
Today’s scripture takes us to the ultimate valley—not just darkness but death itself. And God has the audacity to ask whether dead bones can live again.
We’re in week two of watching for light this Advent, searching for divine brightness in our darkest places. Last Sunday, we saw God’s light appear in the furnace of persecution. But today’s light seems even more impossible. We’re not in a furnace with fire—we’re in a valley where everything is already dead.
The love candle we light today might feel like a cruel joke. What love exists among skeletons? Yet this is precisely where God’s love shows its true nature—not as sentiment but as resurrection power. Love isn’t emotion; it’s the force that breathes life into death. Sometimes human love demonstrates this same resurrection power.
Consider Harriet Tubman. After escaping slavery in 1849, she faced a crossroads: stay safe in Philadelphia or return to Maryland’s death-dealing plantation system. Love drove her back—the fierce love that refuses to leave others in death’s valley. According to tradition, she made between thirteen and nineteen trips south, reportedly saying, “I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
The plantation system was a valley of bones—human beings reduced to property, families scattered like skeletons, hope bleached dry by oppression. Each journey required her to prophesy freedom to those bones, to decide that love was stronger than death’s evidence. Her decision to believe liberation was possible created channels for hundreds to find new life.
Like Ezekiel prophesying to bones, Tubman spoke life into a system of death. Both refused to accept that valleys of bones were permanent.
Ezekiel’s vision arrives at rock bottom. Jerusalem has fallen, the temple lies in ruins, and the exiles in Babylon have given up hope. Their lament—“Our bones are dried up, our hope has perished, we are completely finished”—captures total despair. They’re not just physically exiled but spiritually dead.
The vision’s structure reveals how God works. First comes divine initiative—God’s Spirit literally seizes Ezekiel and places him in the valley. Notice: God doesn’t shield Ezekiel from the horror. Love doesn’t protect us from valleys; love enters them with us. The bones are “very many” and “very dry,” emphasizing the impossibility. These aren’t recent deaths where resuscitation might help. These bones have been separated, scattered, bleached by years of sun. Any moisture, any possibility of life, has long evaporated.
God’s question—“Can these bones live?”—forces a decision point. Ezekiel could have said no, accepting death as final. Instead, his response, “Lord God, only you know,” demonstrates profound faith. He refuses to limit God to human possibilities while honestly acknowledging his own inability to see how resurrection could happen.
The Hebrew word “ruach” appears repeatedly, meaning wind, breath, and spirit simultaneously. This connects to Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into Adam, and anticipates John 20:22, where Jesus breathes the Spirit onto his disciples. In each case, it’s love’s breath—the intimate sharing of God’s own life with creation. The pattern is consistent: divine breath transforms death into life.
Significantly, the bones don’t leave the valley. The place of death becomes the location of resurrection. God doesn’t evacuate us from our valleys but transforms them into testimonies of divine power. This challenges our preference for escape over transformation.
Wesley’s doctrine of prevenient grace illuminates this passage powerfully. Before the bones can respond—before they even know they’re being addressed—God’s grace is already working. This is love in action—pursuing us before we can pursue back. The divine breath moves toward them while they’re still dead, unable to seek or even desire life. This is grace that runs ahead, preparing the way for resurrection.
Methodist theology emphasizes that salvation involves both divine initiative and human response. Ezekiel must choose to prophesy, but he cannot create life. He participates in God’s work without being the source of power. This balance prevents both presumption (thinking we save ourselves) and passivity (refusing to act in faith).
Wesley understood this as God’s love compelling our response without coercing it. The bones don’t choose to live, but Ezekiel chooses to speak. We can’t resurrect ourselves, but we can decide to believe resurrection is possible. That decision opens us to receive what only love can give—life from death.
The communal dimension matters too. The bones become “an extraordinarily large company,” not isolated individuals. Wesleyan theology insists that salvation is personal but never private. God’s breath creates community, binding the resurrected together. Our valleys of dry bones, when touched by divine breath, become gathering places where isolated sufferers discover they’re part of something larger—God’s resurrection people.
Every valley of dry bones requires a decision. Will we accept death as final or dare to prophesy life?
Look at McPherson’s valleys. Some buildings on Main Street face empty storefronts—do we accept economic death or speak new possibility? Our schools face teacher shortages and budget cuts—do we surrender to educational decline or prophesy renewal? Young families leave for Wichita or Kansas City—do we plan our community’s funeral or decide resurrection is possible?
Some valleys feel more personal. The marriage that’s become two strangers sharing a house—will you accept emotional death or choose to speak love into the silence? The addiction that killed your dreams, leaving only shame’s skeleton—will you believe those bones are forever dry or decide recovery can breathe again? The faith that once burned bright but now feels like ancient, scattered remnants—will you walk away or prophesy to those bones?
December intensifies these valleys. The parent missing from the Christmas table. The divorce finalized just before the holidays. The layoff that makes gift-giving impossible. The depression that deepens while everyone else celebrates. These valleys seem especially cruel when surrounded by forced cheer.
The decision gets harder when you’ve tried before. You’ve spoken life to that relationship, that addiction, that depression, and nothing changed. The bones stayed dry. But Ezekiel shows us something crucial—sometimes we must prophesy twice. First to the bones for structure, then to the breath for life. Resurrection rarely happens instantly. Love’s work takes time.
Here’s what makes this decision so difficult: We must choose to prophesy before seeing any evidence of life. The bones don’t twitch first to encourage us. We speak into complete death, trusting God’s power more than our eyes. That’s the crossroads—will you let visible death have the final word, or will you decide to speak God’s word anyway?
The good news erupts from God’s question: “Can these bones live?” God already knows the answer. The question is whether we’ll participate in the resurrection.
Your valley of dry bones isn’t God’s surprise or disappointment. Divine providence led Ezekiel to that valley, just as it has led you to yours. Not to mock your pain but to reveal resurrection power. The same breath that swept over creation’s chaos still moves through your chaos. The Spirit that raised Jesus from death still enters your places of death.
Here’s what changes everything: the power isn’t yours to generate. Ezekiel didn’t perform CPR on those bones. He simply spoke God’s word and watched the impossible unfold. Your job isn’t to manufacture life but to decide whether you’ll speak it, to prophesy even when prophecy seems foolish. God supplies the breath; you supply the choice to believe it’s possible.
The love candle we light today proclaims that God’s love pursues us into our valleys. Divine love doesn’t wait for us to climb out, doesn’t demand we clean up our bones first. Love enters the valley, breathes on death, and creates life we couldn’t imagine.
Most surprisingly, resurrection creates more than individual recovery—it births “an extraordinarily large company.” When God’s breath touches your personal valley of dry bones, it becomes a gathering place for others who thought their bones would never live. Your decision to prophesy doesn’t just change your story; it transforms the stories of those watching your valley, wondering if their own bones might live too.
This week, make your valley decision. Identify one area where you’ve accepted death as final—a relationship, dream, or situation that feels like scattered bones.
Each morning, practice Ezekiel’s two-part prophecy. First, speak structure: “I choose to believe restoration is possible.” Name what could be restored. Then prophesy to the breath: “Come, Holy Spirit, breathe life into these bones.” Spend five minutes listening. Write down any impressions.
If December’s darkness feels overwhelming, join us for Blue Christmas worship next Monday, December 15, at 7 PM in the chapel—a service especially for those carrying grief through the holidays.
On Friday, share with someone what shifted—not necessarily in the situation but in you.
The valley of dry bones waits for your decision. You stand where Ezekiel stood, surveying devastation that seems permanent. God’s question hangs: “Can these bones live?” As we light the love candle, remember that love doesn’t avoid valleys of death but decides to trust the God who breathes life into them. Your only decision is whether you’ll speak life despite death’s evidence. That simple choice opens channels for divine breath.
The second Sunday of Advent reminds us that God’s love isn’t the absence of valleys but divine breath within them. You don’t have to leave your valley to find light. The light comes to you, carried on breath that still moves through death. Your bones can live—not because you’re strong enough to resurrect them, but because God specializes in breathing love’s life into dry valleys. Choose life.
Will you pray with me?
Breathing God, we stand in valleys of death choosing to prophesy life. Give us courage to speak resurrection until your breath brings bones together. Let your love be stronger than our doubt, your life fiercer than our death. Amen.
In crafting today’s sermon, I employed AI assistants like Claude and Apple Intelligence, yet the ultimate responsibility for its content rests with me. These tools offered valuable perspectives, but the most influential sermon preparation hinges on biblical study, theological insight, personal reflection, and divine guidance. I see AI as a supportive aid to enrich the sermon process while ensuring my own voice in proclaiming the Word of God.
Rev. Andrew Conard 