• Date: December 7, 2025
• Bible Reading: Ezekiel 37:1-14
• The Point: God’s powerful presence brings new life and heals broken relationships.
• Free Resource: Our Absent Members (Cross+Gen Education, NL)
• Unit Theme (November 30—December 25): God’s Presence Brings Life

God’s people felt abandoned and hopeless in exile. God gave the prophet Ezekiel a vision of life, hope, and God’s own breath.

Still in Babylon

God had promised King David, a man after God’s own heart, that he would have a house (dynasty) after David wanted to build God a house (temple). David was king over all of the tribes of Israel. But though his son Solomon started out his reign with wisdom, he later turned from God to the gods of his many foreign wives and concubines. Because of this, once Solomon died, the united kingdom was torn in two, with most of the tribes rejecting David’s grandson Rehoboam and forming their own kingdom of Israel. All that was left was the tribe of Judah (along with the tribe of Benjamin, and parts of Levi and Dan). So, the dynasty of David continued only in the southern kingdom of Judah.

With a few exceptions like Hezekiah and Josiah, most of the kings in David’s line were disobedient to God, as were the people. They turned from God’s ways to their own and the ways of their neighbors. After they ignored many prophetic warnings, God sent them into exile within the Babylonian Empire. The people were taken from the Promised Land, and the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. But God gave them hope through the prophets (such as Jeremiah) and urged them to maintain their faith and identity in the hostile land. But the prophetic messages of hope were not enough.

Lost Hope

God’s people doubted whether they were still God’s people. Did God reject them? Was their God not powerful enough to deliver them from the might of the Babylonians, as God had freed the people from Egyptian enslavement? Were those old stories even true? They said:

“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”

Ezekiel 37:11

They felt like God had abandoned them. Without their God, they had no hope.

Our Dry Bones?

Have you ever felt like that? Abandoned by God? Without hope? It doesn’t even have to be completely without hope; it can be in one aspect of your life. One part of life where you feel empty, abandoned. For some, it can be in a broken relationship, for others in the state of their community or country. Some might even feel fine, except for the place where they used to feel spiritually alive and now feels empty, dry, and dead.

Most adults (and many youth) have felt hopeless at one point in their lives or another. Ask them to reflect on a time when they felt dried up and cut off from God or from others. For children, this will need to be simplified into something like feeling sad or lonely.

The Word of the Lord

God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones, saying:

“O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.”

Ezekiel 37:4

What is this word of the Lord?

“I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”

Ezekiel 37:5

God doesn’t say that things aren’t that bad, that they are being overly dramatic, or that their lives will work out in the end. No, God acknowledges the people’s experiences of their suffering, that they are without breath, and in a sense, dead. God promises the impossible, a reversal of death to life. While it’s an open question of whether this vision also refers to the general resurrection of the dead, it is about a resurrection of sorts: the resurrection of hope.

The Breath of God

One of the significant aspects of this vision is the role of ruach, a Hebrew word that is alternatively translated as “breath,” “wind,” and “spirit.” After Ezekiel does as he is commanded and the dry bones come back to life as a vast multitude, the whole house of Israel, God reiterates the promise from verse 5:

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

Ezekiel 37:14

The difference between verse 5 and verse 15 here is primarily a change from a generic, life-giving breath [ruach] to God’s own life-giving breath/spirit [ruach]. Not only will God cause these people who are without hope to live, but God will again claim the people and bring them into an intimate relationship with God.

In fact, I prefer the translation that God will put God’s breath within the people. While it is important for your faith formation participants to know that “breath” is the same as “spirit” here, we can too often think of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us as somehow separate from God and ourselves (even though we confess the opposite). But the image of sharing God’s breath is more visceral, more intimate.

God’s Word for Us

Moving back to our times of hopelessness, what is God’s word for us? What word would bring a promise of life into our dry bones? I’m never a fan of telling people that everything will be okay. As much as I’d love to be able to give that comfort and hope, that’s not something we can know. Sometimes, everything is not okay. Sometimes the cancer wins, the grief doesn’t go away, or the relationship is not healed.

We do, however, have the promise that God will never leave us or forsake us. God is as close to us as our very breath. And we, as the Body of Christ, can embody this promise ourselves by accompanying people through the times of hopelessness. Even when we cannot feel God’s breath within us, we can experience God’s representatives sharing God’s love with us.

In God’s breath,

Gregory Rawn (Publisher)

Free Resource

During the main Narrative Lectionary year (September 7 to May 24), we provide a free resource download from one of our products to help you in your faith formation ministry. This week, download “Our Absent Members,” an activity from our Living the Word: Cross+Gen Education (NL) curriculum. This product is even available as individual lessons!

Order Faith Formation Resources

Advent (and our Winter Quarter) is upon us! If you ordered only the fall resources or want to try something new, order now and download immediately! Our Narrative Lectionary (Year 4, 2025-2026) and Revised Common Lectionary (Years C & A, 2025-2026) resources are online, ready to order, and available for immediate download! If you don’t have much time for full-length children’s Christian education, then check out our Kids Mini Lessons for the NL and RCL. If you don’t use a lectionary, check out our non-lectionary Living the Word: Classroom (PK-2nd, 3rd-6th).

Are you looking for resources for topical Sunday school, family/intergenerational events, retreats, and more?

Learning Together is a series of five-lesson units on a variety of topics. Our faith formation resources are easy to use, theologically sound, and inclusive.

Check out our newest Learning Together unit: Travelers (Immigrants and Refugees).

Our unit Celebrations is a recommended VBS curriculum by Building Faith (and the only curriculum they reviewed from a small, independent publisher)!!!

You can read outside reviews on both our Do Justice and Created to Care units!

I am very honored to announce that I was a guest on the premiere episode of season 3 of the Around the Table podcast! The topic: how faith formation is different than Christian education. Check it out at Around the Table S03E01.

Our Resources

At Spirit & Truth Publishing, we might have exactly what you are looking for:

• Resources for the Narrative Lectionary (2025-2026): Products for all ages, including mini lessons for PK-6th, if you only have a short time for elementary faith formation.
• Classic Sunday School Curriculum: Key Bible stories for PK-2nd and 3rd-6th, also great for your Christian elementary school!
• Learning Together: Five-lesson, topical units for family events, VBS, Sunday school, children, and intergenerational groups.
• Resources for the Revised Common Lectionary (2025-2026): Intergenerational classroom, mini lessons for children.
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