This is the final day of a series in Ezekiel 33-37, about God’s promised reboot of his people. If you’ve just joined, you can either go to the start of the series, or simply begin chapter 37 with us starting with Monday’s post.

So far in chapter 37 we’ve seen this promise of new life for God’s people, and how it was brought about by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It was both a spiritual resurrection (the indwelling Holy Spirit now) and a physical resurrection (raised to life when Jesus returns). And we’ve seen how Ezekiel looked forward to a reunification of God’s people Israel, which includes people from all nations – which is how we get to be a part of the story.

But what does that future resurrection really look like?

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This is week four of a series in Ezekiel 33-37, about God’s promised reboot of his people. If you’ve just joined, you can either go to the start of the series, or simply begin the new chapter with us starting with Monday’s post.

Yesterday, we saw how Jesus defeated death on behalf of his people, and rose again so they could have new life: both spiritual resurrection (the gift of the Holy Spirit) and a future physical resurrection (when Jesus returns). But how is this our story? We end up asking that each week, don’t we? Because so far tonight: this is Israel’s story. God’s people in the Old Testament. And Jesus turns up as the fulfilment of their story. What’s that got to do with us?

The two-stick magic trick

Thankfully, God gets Ezekiel to perform a magic trick to explain it. Back to the passage, starting at verse 15:

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This is week four of a series in Ezekiel 33-37, about God’s promised reboot of his people. If you’ve just joined, you can either go to the start of the series, or simply begin the new chapter with us starting with Monday’s post.

Yesterday we left Israel as a zombie army that had been reassembled from dried up bones, waiting for the breath of God to enter them and give them new life. When did this happen, and how?

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This is week four of a series in Ezekiel 33-37, about God’s promised reboot of his people. If you’ve just joined, you can either go to the start of the series, or simply begin the new chapter with us starting today.

In April this year, I was with my mother when she took her last breath. They’d been difficult, hard-fought breaths as her 18-month battle with cancer came to an end. And suddenly, there were none. Her body no longer had the breath of life in it.

At moments like those, the promise of new life for God’s people takes on supreme importance. We want to know what it really means. Beyond the big haired, big-smiled sales pitch that offers Jesus as the path to “your best life now.” Beyond the glib assurances that “she’s in a better place.” What does this new life we talk about mean, right now, when it matters most?

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This is week three of a series in Ezekiel 33-37, about God’s promised reboot of his people. If you’ve just joined, you can either go to the start of the series, or simply begin the new chapter with us starting from Monday’s post.

Today, we’re finishing off our look at Ezekiel chapter 36: the new heart God promised via Ezekiel, and then delivered in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We saw that if we’ve joined God’s people, we’ve been given that heart transplant, too.

Living with our new heart

So what are the post-operative instructions? How do we make sure our body doesn’t reject the transplant?

Simply this: get on board with what God is doing.

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This is week three of a series in Ezekiel 33-37, about God’s promised reboot of his people. If you’ve just joined, you can either go to the start of the series, or simply begin the new chapter with us starting from Monday’s post.

Yesterday, we saw how Jesus turned up announcing good news: the new heart promised in Ezekiel 36 was coming. A donor heart was on its way! Today, we see how that happened, and how we fit in to the story.

How did the transplant happen?

Well, just like with any heart transplant, someone first has to die. And this is where Jesus separates himself from every other religious and philosophical guru who’s ever tried to show us how we should live. He doesn’t just paint this Utopian picture of a people living with changed, obedient hearts—and then call us all, somehow, to live up to it. To change ourselves. No, he paints that picture and then makes it possible.

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