05/23/2026
Join us on Sunday as we celebrate Pentecost during 10AM worship service. You are invited to wear red in honor of the holy day! Pastor Bart shared the following reflection on Pentecost on this week’s newsletter:
One of the things I love about Pentecost is that Ezekiel 37:1-14 often shows up alongside the Acts 2 reading in the lectionary. And I’m glad it does, because I love this story.
It is strange, vivid, unsettling, and somehow deeply hopeful. The prophet is carried by the Spirit into a valley full of dry bones. Not a few bones— a lot of bones. Very dry bones. Desiccated would be the SAT word. It is one of those Bible scenes that sticks with you. And, if you grew up in church, there is at least a decent chance you can’t read it without hearing that old spiritual in the back of your mind: “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones…” Once it starts, it is hard to stop.
Ezekiel’s vision was first spoken to a people who felt like their life had fallen apart. They had lost home, stability, and any clear sense of what came next. Their cry was simple and heartbreaking: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost.”
That ancient cry still sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Sometimes the dry places are personal: grief that lingers, relationships that feel worn thin, fatigue that settles deep in the soul. Sometimes the dry places are social: a frayed public life, anxious communities, neighbors carrying burdens we cannot always see, and violence and corruption that goes unchecked.
And that is why this text belongs at Pentecost.
Pentecost is the celebration of the Holy Spirit— the breath of God rushing into frightened disciples and birthing something new. In Ezekiel, that same breath moves over what seems finished. Bone by bone, sinew by sinew, breath returns.
That is the good news: God does not wait for ideal conditions before creating new life!
So as Pentecost approaches, where do you see dry bones these days? In your own life? In our community? And where might the Spirit already be stirring, quietly, stubbornly, bringing life where we had nearly stopped expecting it?
