Gather

Another season of lent where I commit to blogging has begun.  This year I am adapting a lent idea that was to take and share a photo each day based off a word.  Instead, I will take some time each day to look up Bible verses containing the word, reflect, and blog some thoughts.


Today's word is "gather".  The verse I've chosen is Job 34:14-15, which says, "If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust." (ESV)  I read this at my church's Ash Wednesday service shortly after having the ashes placed on my forehead and hearing the words, "From dust you came; to dust you shall return."


Fortunately, this is not what God has set His heart to, and that is the grace of this season.  I've been doing Beth Moore's Bible study about the Holy Spirt called "Breath".  We've examined verses similar to the one in Job linking words like "breath", "spirit", and "life", which is one of the reasons this stood out to me.  Another reason is the passage we studied in the last session.


I encourage you to read Ezekiel 37:1-14.  It's the passage about the dry bones being brought to life.  In short, God asks the prophet Ezekiel, "Son of man, can these bones live?".  Ezekiel replies, "O Lord GOD, you know."  God tells him to prophesy life over the bones.  As he did so, the bones came together and were covered with flesh, but there was no breath.  He was then commanded to prophesy to the breath to breathe on the slain so they might live and they did.  The passage ends with God's promise to raise His people from their graves and place His Spirit in them so they might live.


I go to a church where communion is usually only taken once a month, except for special occasions.  Communion happened to fall the day after this lesson.  As I watched everyone go up for communion, I reflected on this passage.  "Can these dry bones live?" God seemed to still be asking.  "O Lord GOD, you know," I thought as I watched person after person receive the sacraments that said, "Yes."  Bones metaphorically coming together and being covered with sinews and flesh.  God breathing new life into His people that were once dead in their transgressions.  While advent looks forward to the birth of Christ, lent looks forward to God breathing life into dry bones.


From dust we came; to dust we shall return.  Praise the God whose heart is not sent on leaving us that way.  The God who instead chose to open our graves and breathe life into us a second time.  He could have gathered His breath instead.  We'd had our chance and blown it.  Yet He chose to give His last breath so that we might once again have breath.  This is the beauty of lent and Easter.