New Beginnings with Ezekiel

Lucy Moore

Introduction:

Ezekiel was a priest called by God to speak comfort and hope to the people of Israel, who were in exile in Babylon. The temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed and the people had been taken far from home as prisoners. As a result most had lost heart and felt that everything had come to an end forever. Ezekiel's prophecies promised a new beginning and life out of death for God's people. In a series of mysterious and vivid visions Ezekiel assured them that God would rescue them again and give them another chance. The famous story of the dry bones coming to life is one of these visions.

What follows is a selection of ideas that can be used to explore this story with children in an assembly and then in the classroom.

Preparation:

Use the story as it is retold in The Barnabas Schools' Bible, pages 197 to 198, story 224.

You might find it helpful to read some of the other stories about Ezekiel to get an overall picture of his context. You can find these in stories 222 to 225.

You will need: some percussion instruments, a self-assembly skeleton model, some brown and green paper cut in the shape of leaves, craft sticks.

Development:

1. To introduce the theme, use a simple self-assembly skeleton model and place all the separate bones on to a dusty tray with some dried earth on it. Talk about what the bones might make if you put them together, then make the skeleton with help from some older children.

Ask how the children know it is not alive. What would it need to live?

2. Introduce the idea that some people feel very dried up and dead like these bones, even when they're alive. Think of a writer who has run out of ideas for poems, or a teacher who doesn't have any energy to teach any more, or an asylum seeker who feels far away from anyone who loves them, or two friends who find they don't enjoy being with each other anymore.

Do the children have any other ideas of people who might feel like these dry, dusty bones? Have they ever felt like this?

3. Introduce the story.

There was a time when God's people felt like dry, dusty old bones. They were far from home in a foreign land, brought there by their enemies, and they longed to go home. They had lost all hope. But God didn't want them to stay hopeless. He wanted them to believe his promise that one day God would fill them with his Spirit and bring them home again. So he came very close to one of his prophets, a priest called Ezekiel, and showed him an amazing picture.

4. Tell the story of Ezekiel's vision from The Barnabas Schools' Bible, story 224 or Ezekiel 37.

5. I wonder what it might have sounded like to Ezekiel?

Provide a selection of instruments and materials for making sound effects, especially anything that makes the following sort of noises: a rattling noise (claves, shakers, hollow wooden shapes), a blowing noise (woodwind instruments, rainsticks), a rustling noise (rustles of tissue paper, brown paper), stamping of feet (anything drum-like).

Invite some children up to act out the story. Some could play the parts of the bones and others provide sound effects as the bones come to life.

I wonder what this story meant to be the people who first heard it? I wonder what it might mean for us today?

Find a version of the spiritual 'Dem Bones, Dem Bones', if possible (perhaps through the Internet), which you could play as the children reflect on the meaning of this 'new beginnings' story for today.

6. In the classroom, develop this further, by asking one child or an adult to be Ezekiel and the rest to be the people of Israel, who haven't yet heard about Ezekiel's vision.

Hot seat some of the Israelites to find out how they're feeling. Then hot seat Ezekiel himself and ask him about what he's just seen. Hot seat some other Israelites and see whether Ezekiel's vision has made a difference to how they feel about God. Lastly hot seat Ezekiel with present-day people and find out what this story might mean for them today.

7. Think about what we discover about God from this story.

8. For further reflection, put on some quiet music.

Give out some brown paper cut in the shape of dead leaves and large enough to draw on. Ask the children to think of someone or of a situation which seems hopeless.

Write or draw this on the leaf. Pin the leaves onto a brown felt tree outline. As they heard in the story, God is a God of life, who can bring life and hope and power where there has been sadness and despair.

Now give out some green paper leaves and place these over the dead ones, as a sign that Christians believe that God can bring hope and a new beginning to a 'dead' situation.

9. As an alternative, you might ask where each child thinks they are in this story, perhaps using drawings of the different stages of the bones' development, for example scattered bones... bones coming together gradually... fleshed-out bones but without any breath of God in them... fully alive bones in body and spirit and ready to be a force for good in the world.

10. As a craft response, the children could make individual skeletons with craft sticks and then 'dress' them like the old-fashioned paper doll clothes with fold-over tabs. Anatomically-minded children might prefer to add muscle, sinew and skin rather than frilly dresses!

(N.B. Depending on your age group, it may be appropriate to lay down some guidelines about which organs you do / do not wish to see graphically featured before they appear!)