Life Between The Trees: The Cedar Tree - Ezekiel 17:22-24
Here’s your weekly
question: Have we added any new proud tree-huggers to our midst? We had a few more (despite the snow and ice
covered trees) last week. Hopefully each
week we will add more and more of our congregation as we remember the
importance of trees throughout God’s Word, as we journey in our “Life Between
The Trees” from the Creation of Eden to the restoration of our fallen creation
in New Jerusalem, not mention our call from Eden, in the meantime to care for
all of God’s Creation.
In Eden, as we
encountered the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life we
were confronted with gift of Free Will offered to us by God. We also encountered humanity’s tendency to
choose our way and choose death over obedience to God and choosing full life.
With Noah, we found the
Olive Tree. Cast out of Eden we saw
humanity spiral downward out of control until our sin brought about the
destruction of creation with God saving Noah and his family and preserving
animal life aboard the ark. The olive
leaf brought back to Noah by the dove becomes the symbol of hope, realizing
that no matter what we may feel like we are drowning in, God is with us, God
will save us, and God will bring us through the flood—just as God saved us from
the flood of our own sin, as Paul tells us using the image of an olive tree, by
grafting us into His family through Jesus Christ.
Today we come to the
mighty cedar trees.
The cedar tree. It is amazing how God works. In the original plans for this series I had
included the cedar tree. However, when
calculating the weeks from the start of the series to the end of the series, I
found that I had one too many weeks planned in order to end on Easter Sunday. I had to pick one to drop. I decided to drop the cedar tree. After finalizing plans, and coordinating
things with our worship team, I started work on the first sermon and conducted
the survey on Facebook, asking folks to name the first tree that came to mind
when thinking of trees associated with the Bible. I shared with y’all that the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil was tied for second, and the Tree of Life tied for
fourth. Last week’s olive tree was the
number one response, and, well the Cedars of Lebanon was tied with the Tree of
Life for fourth. Oops…dropped the wrong
tree. Oh well. But like I said, God works in amazing
ways. We couldn’t get our musician
secured for our music Sunday today, opening the need for another Sunday in the
series. God must have really wanted us
to deal with His mighty cedar.
So what is the
significance of the cedar tree throughout the Bible? References to the cedar through Scripture are
most often the Cedars of Lebanon. We
find these cedars of Lebanon over and over throughout the Old Testament in a
variety of ways. Sometimes they are
presented in very positive ways, however there are times that they are cast in
a negative light. If you were able to
build with cedar, it was a sign of wealth and prestige. The cedar logs imported into Israel were
understood to be of the choicest of woods…for their beauty, for their
strength. They were used to build
David’s palace. They were used by
Solomon, along with the cypress, for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. They were tall trees, they were strong trees,
they were beautiful trees, and as evergreens, they were a sign of life. Yet it is their height and strength which
also lend the cedar to be used through Scripture in negative ways—they become a
symbol for pride and arrogance. Yet,
less the people think themselves too great, trusting in their own strength and
glory, we are reminded, as in Psalm 29:5 that even the voice of God is strong
that the cedars: “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the
cedars of Lebanon.”
That power of God,
greater than even the powerful cedar, becomes the focal point of our reading
from Ezekiel this morning. God had made
a covenant with King David, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with
your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth
from your body, and I will establish his kingdom…Your house and your kingdom
shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established
forever.”[i] Though God made this promise, it isn’t too
long before we see David’s family starting to fracture as David and his sons
make decisions that would rival any of today’s dysfunctional families.
After David’s death, his
son Solomon ascends to the throne, and Solomon’s reign seems to pick up and
mirror David’s greatness. Solomon asks
God not for riches or fame or even the defeat of his enemies, but instead asks
God for wisdom to lead God’s people. Solomon constructs the original Temple in
Jerusalem, with such splendor and glory that there was no rival. However, it is after that his decisions lead
to the crumbling of the Davidic kingdom…like his father, he has problems with
restraint when it comes to women, and takes to himself wife and wife and female
companion after female companion, including relations with non-Hebrew women.
Solomon dies and his son
Rehoboam assumes the throne. We don’t
see Rehoboam continuing the trouble decisions with regard to women. However, rather than lower the taxes on the
people that had been put in place under Solomon as he raised money to build the
temple. Rehoboam increases the financial
demands placed on the people for the sake of padding his treasury.
Revolt under Rehoboam
split the kingdom into the Northern and Southern Kingdom, into Israel and
Judah, and then the continuing faltering and sinning of the leaders and the
people saw the king and all the officials of Jerusalem taken off into exile
Babylon. Earlier in chapter 17, Ezekiel
paints the picture of this as an eagle swooping in and ripping off the top of
the cedar tree and taking it off to a foreign land. The royal cedar of David was broken, and left
for dead. Ezekiel then says the seed
from the branch the eagle broke off will be planted by the river and begin to
grow there in that land of exile.
Our reading picks up this
morning as Ezekiel speaks further into this scene, as the people find
themselves in exile, under the rule of Babylon, wondering if they, as God’s
people, are no more, God’s promise to David, void; if they are now simply to
become people of Babylon. Ezekiel reminds
them that no situation is beyond the redemptive power of God who is greater
than even the mighty cedar.
God says, “I myself will
take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the
topmost of its young twigs; I will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.” The lofty cedar that had been in Jerusalem
had been damaged and destroyed, but God had removed from that cedar a sprig, a
remnant, and he replanted the cedar to grow into a mighty tree. Out of Babylon, God will bring Zerubbabel, a
descendant of David. Zerubbabel will
lead the people back into Jerusalem where they will rebuild both their city and
their Temple. God’s promise to David is
still in place as his ancestor reassumes leading the people of God.
God replants that remnant,
that sprig, with Zerubbabel. However,
that is just the beginning of God’s growing that sprig into a full tree that
stands tall for all the world to see.
This sprig will become the full tree, reach its full height in the
Messiah, in Jesus, the Christ. It is
Christ that we see that the tree fully grown.
It is in Christ that we see God’s promise of David’s throne being
established forever. It is in Christ
that we see God establish a kingdom not marked by the political borders of
Israel and limited to the Hebrew ethnicity, but through Christ we see this
kingdom become worldwide. This noble
cedar produces fruit in works of mercy and grace, and provides shade for “every
kind of bird…winged creatures of every kind.”
So what does this cedar
tree mean to us, my brothers and sisters…there is so much to take from God’s
mighty and noble cedar. Two things them
I would lift to us today.
First, while we might
falter and fail, God does not. While we
might remove ourselves from enjoying the blessings of God due to our sin, we do
not and cannot void God’s promises. God
keeps His promises and will see them fulfilled.
For us we have the promise of a redeemed and eternal life through
Christ, and while our sin may have caused us to become estranged from God, if
we, like the people of God in Babylon, return to God, we will see God’s new
life springing from our lives. God has
the power to give new life where the rest of the world sees brokenness and death,
whether it is reestablishing the people of Israel out of exile in Babylon,
raising His Son, our Savior, from the tomb, or rescuing us from wherever our
sin may have us languishing like a broken tree.
Secondly, God’s life
giving, redemptive, re-establishing of His people is not simply for the sake of
those He immediately rescued. God’s
raising up of Zerubbabel was not simply for Zerubbabel, but for all of God’s
remnant that had been in exile. God’s
raising of Jesus was not just for Jesus’ sake, but so that all who believed in
Him might find salvation. God’s raising
up of us from wherever death has tried to take hold of us is not simply for our
sake, that others might find new life in Him.
It is so all the birds will find shade and places of rest…all the birds,
not just the birds that look like us, not just the birds that sound like us,
not just the birds that fly like us, but all the birds of the world—God has
raised us up as his mighty cedar, His Church, that in order that we might
provide places of relief and rest for all people, regardless of their skin
color, regardless of their language, regardless of their nationality,
regardless of their political allegiance, regardless, even, of their religion
or lack of religion. It is for all. Why?
So that all the trees of the field, all the kingdoms and people of the
world might know that God is Lord, who will raise up those who are low and have
fallen…and give new life where death seems to have taken hold, that all might
come to find themselves not only in the shade of, but as a branch of God’s
noble cedar.
In the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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