Can These Bones Live
Ezekiel 37:3 · Revelation 21:5 (NIV)
Erik Finger is a transplant surgeon at the University of Minnesota. John Bischof is a bioengineer there. Their team has been working on a hard question. Can a kidney be cooled so deeply that it can be stored for a long time, then warmed and used again?
MIT Technology Review, a magazine that covers science and technology, reported last week on their newest work. The team filled pig kidneys with protective chemicals and tiny iron oxide particles. Then they cooled the kidneys to about 150 degrees below zero Celsius, until the tissue turned glassy. Most were stored for days or weeks. One was stored for just over a year.
To bring them back, the team used an electromagnetic field. It heated those particles, which warmed each kidney from the inside. The kidney stored for a year was tested on a machine, where it began making urine right away. Other rewarmed kidneys were placed in pigs and regained blood flow and color. "They pink right up," Finger said.
The news digest 1440 summarized the work this morning and said the kidneys were successfully transplanted. The research described in the reporting is more limited. It was shared as a preprint and has not yet completed peer review. The kidneys placed in pigs were watched for two hours. They made about two-thirds of the expected urine, and they showed signs of injury. Greg Fahy, a cryobiologist who was not part of the work, said, "We can't tell from these experiments whether these kidneys might have supported life or not."
Peter Kilbride, another cryobiologist outside the project, still called it a breakthrough. "For years, people have been trying and failing to get to this step," he said.
The scientists hold hope and honesty together. So did the prophet Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a priest who lived among the people of Israel after they were taken captive to Babylon, about six hundred years before JESUS. In a vision, GOD brought him to a valley. "I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry" (Ezekiel 37:2). Then GOD asked him a question. "Son of man, can these bones live?" Ezekiel answered, "Sovereign Lord, you alone know" (Ezekiel 37:3).
Ezekiel admitted he did not know, and he left the answer with GOD.
Then GOD gave Ezekiel words to speak over the bones. "I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life" (Ezekiel 37:5). Later GOD told Ezekiel what the bones meant. "These bones are the people of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off'" (Ezekiel 37:11). GOD was promising to restore Israel, a people who had stopped hoping. The vision gives us reason to trust HIM without making a promise about the outcome of any particular treatment.
GOD has cared about bodies from the beginning. Long before Ezekiel, Israel came through the desert to a place called Marah, where the water was bitter. "Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink" (Exodus 15:25). There GOD identified HIMSELF as their healer. "I am the Lord, who heals you" (Exodus 15:26). Those words close a longer verse about Israel listening to GOD and obeying, and HIS care for the sick appears throughout Scripture.
Psalm 72 describes the King GOD's people longed for. "He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death... for precious is their blood in his sight" (Psalm 72:13-14). Christians see that King in JESUS, who touched the sick and fed the hungry.
A bishop named Irenaeus led the church in Lyon, in what is now France, around AD 180. In his work Against Heresies, while discussing GOD’s goodness and justice, he wrote that GOD "does benevolently cause His sun to rise upon all" (Against Heresies III.25.4). He was echoing JESUS, who said the Father "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). The steady hands of a surgeon and the patience of a lab grow in that same sunlight.
The last book of the Bible, Revelation, tells the end of the story. "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them" (Revelation 21:3). "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4). Then the One on the throne says, "I am making everything new!" HE adds, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true" (Revelation 21:5).
The researchers are right to say they cannot tell yet. GOD has already said HIS words are trustworthy and true.
It leaves me thinking about how often I want certainty before I am willing to hope.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the one whose hope feels dried up, GOD gave HIS promise to people who said the same thing.
🙏 To the one waiting on a test result or a transplant, HE knows what you cannot know yet.
🙏 To the one grieving at a grave, HE will wipe every tear from your eyes.
🙏 To the ones who care for the sick, the Lord who heals sees your work.
Grace and Peace.