Ezekiel and the Valley of the Dry Bones

[caption id="attachment_442" align="alignright" width="339" caption="Ezekiel preaches to a tough audience.... "][/caption]
Cool title... I just need a sermon. Sunday I'll be looking at the message of Ezekiel... now here's a guy that God really messed with! "Eat this scroll", "Lay on your side for a year", "Shave your head", "Eat this over a fire of human dung"... what was he thinking? Of course, Ezekiel being the faithful prophet of God that he was... always did just as God commanded. (Actually he did protest having to eat his meals cooked over human poop, so God made an allowance and told him that he could use cow manure instead... I'm still not sure that was any better, though.)
Anyway, as eccentric as Ezekiel was... what was his message? I love the task he was given in ch 37... "Go and preach to a bunch of rotting skeletons in the valley of dry bones." Woo hoo! I've preached before some dead audiences before, but THIS is ridiculous! Actually it was a huge object lesson for Ezekiel and for Israel. God is giving the people a message of hope in the midst of despair and telling them that He can bring forth life from their destroyed and "dead" nation. And if God can bring life to dead bones, and if God can bring life back to Israel after their total and utter destruction... wonder what else He can do?
Thoughts for Sunday???