Today we celebrate another of our social or secular holidays. Today is Father’s Day and we are glad for all our father’s that have begun this day by bringing their family to be fed with the Word of the Lord. Indeed, God’s calling to fatherhood is His highest calling and with that calling He gives great responsibility. I might remind you as we heard last week, according the order of creation, after Eve and Adam sinned, God came calling Adam to give an account because God had given him the role as the one accountable in his family. God still gives that ultimate role to fathers even today. So, again, we are glad you are here exercising your role as spiritual leader of your family.
Moving on, we began our current church year six and a half months ago with the season of Advent. Advent prepared us to celebrate Christmas. Christmas moved us into Epiphany and the celebration of the visit of the Magi. Transfiguration Sunday concluded Epiphany and the following Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of lent. Lent prepared us for Maundy Thursday and the giving of the Lord’s Supper and especially and more importantly Lent prepared us for Good Friday, the celebration of Jesus paying the price for our sins, not that we celebrated our Lord’s death, but we celebrated His paying the price for our sins so that we might have forgiveness of sins. On that following Sunday we celebrated the defeat of death in Jesus’ resurrection and for forty days we celebrated Easter, actually we celebrated Easter for fifty days. Forty days after Easter we celebrated Jesus’ ascension and then fifty days after Easter we celebrated the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Three Sundays ago we celebrated Holy Trinity Sunday, that is we celebrated that we worship a God who has revealed Himself to us as a God who is three persons in one Godhead. And now, today we are three Sundays into what is called the non-festival portion of the church year. Which means that for the next twenty-four Sundays, for the next five and a half months, except for Reformation and All Saints day, we will be seeing green. This is good. Green is the color of growth and so for the next twenty-four Sundays, Lord willing, we will grow in our faith and faith life.
With that said, let us get to the text. First, we want to define the imagery that Ezekiel is using in our text. In verse twenty-two he says, “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out” (v. 22), the sprig is the line of David. Next, continuing on in verse twenty-two he says, “I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain” (v. 22), the tender one, the tender twig, is Jesus. In verse twenty-three he says, “in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest” (v. 23), the birds of every kind are all people, both Jew and Gentile alike. And in verse twenty-four he says, “all the trees of the field” (v. 24), the all the trees are other kings. In his book, Christology of the Old Testament, (p. 697-700) W. W. Hengstenberg writes, “The tribe of David is a lofty cedar upon Lebanon. Nebuchadnezzar breaks off its top, and brings it to Babylon,—the carrying away of Jehoiachin, and the rest of the royal family. He plants in Jerusalem an inferior growth.” A little later he adds that this inferior growth is Zedakiah, which before he is settled, is again up rooted. And finally, the Lord takes a twig and plants it, from which a glorious kingdom emerges. In other words, this is a passage of what we call Messianic Prophecy. This is a passage that is prophesying the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Now, to put this text into perspective we need to make a quick review of Israel’s history. Simply put, God chose Abraham and promised to make him a great nation. God’s promise was passed on to Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve tribes of Israel. After being lead out of slavery in Egypt, and after several judges, God allowed the Israelites to have their own way and to be ruled by a king in a similar way as the other nations around them. Israel’s first king was Saul, next came David, and then Solomon. After this the kingdom was divided and we have two kingdoms and two sets of kings, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. As you read through the Old Testament you can see how Israel’s history was a history of ups and downs, but after Solomon’s death the kingdom and nation of Israel really did go down hill. The people strayed, even into idolatry and other malicious sins. As a consequence of their sins God allowed other nations to capture and enslave the Israelites. Our text was written during this period of Israel’s exile.
Now you are asking the question, “what does this text have to do with me?” Good question! We come into the text because we are included in the “birds of every kind.” We are included in God’s plan and in His kingdom way back here in the Old Testament. We have a part in the Messianic Prophecy, because the Messiah, Jesus Christ is to be the Messiah of all people. He is our Savior too. Of course, this fact should not surprise us as we said last week when Adam and Eve sinned God’s first Gospel promise was a promise of a Savior, a Christ for all people. As we know, Adam and Eve were neither Jewish nor Gentile, but contained in them was every tribe, nation and culture. Perhaps after God chose Abraham and promised that through his family line the Savior would be born He knew that some people might misinterpret that and think the Savior was only for Israel and so we have a reiteration that the Savior was for all people, all birds of every kind.
Our Gospel reading for this morning is connected to this text as an interpretation, only slightly different. Mark 4:30-32 reads, “30And [Jesus] said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, 32yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’” The connection is that as Ezekiel talks about a tender twig becoming a great tree, in Mark, Jesus says a mustard seed becomes the resting place for the birds of the air. We know that the Messiah came from the impoverished family of David to be the King of His church. Jesus came to gather all people from every nation and culture into His kingdom.
To put this into perspective we can say that Ezekiel’s account aims at consoling the Israelites on their loss of glory and their need of humiliation before the coming Messiah and their exaltation. In Mark, Jesus’ parable aims at God’s coming in flesh, what seems to be a small beginning but truly has a glorious completion. We see that it is God who gives the promise in Ezekiel and God who also fulfills the promise in His Son, Jesus. Thus we see God’s Word fulfilled as He says in verse twenty-four of our text, “I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it” (v. 24).
You have no doubt heard the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” This saying means that people of similar cultures, backgrounds, jobs, ethnicities, creeds, and so on, tend to gather together, often as a way of receiving mutual support. There is ample evidence that this saying is true. Just look at the many various and diversified support groups that have come about over the past number of years. We are people who have a tendency to associate with others of similar likes and dislikes, because we feel the most comfortable with, shall we say, our own kind.
But this saying is not as true as you might think. Even in groups that flock together because of similarities there are differences and difficulties. This happens because we live in a sin filled world. We are all sinners and being sinners we separate ourselves from each other. Not only do we have a tendency to put down other groups in order to raise up our own, we also put down those in our own group in order to raise up ourselves. Not only do we have nation against nation we also have brother against brother.
This brings us back to Ezekiel and our tree talk. Because of their sin, the Israelites were humbled. Because of our sin we are dried up. Because of His great love for us, God sent His Son to die on a cross made of a tree, to overcome sin and to gather us together again. Jesus was the “insignificant” twig broken from the top of Israel who died on a tree and rose again, becoming victorious over sin, death, and the devil. Jesus now holds out His splendor to us, that is to every kind of bird, all people, so that by faith in Him we have the gift and promise of eternal life in heaven.
Notice, again, how it all begins and ends with the Lord. God gives and we are given to and yet, how much, according to our sinful nature, do we insist on putting ourselves into the mix. God calls us to faith, and He does this through His means of grace. For some, God has called us to faith through His Word. For most of us, God called us to faith as infants through the waters of Holy Baptism. And yet, how often do we hear others and sometimes ourselves wanting to put ourselves into the mix suggesting, “Well, we did not reject faith in Jesus,” as if this is something on which we can hang our salvation, wanting a little credit.
God calls us to faith and He calls us to our vocation, that is He calls us to live lives of faith. And we only live lives of faith as He lives in and through us. Here again, this is not something that comes natural to us, as we are conceived and born in sin, as every inclination of our heart is evil all the time, as we sin in thought, word and deed, and as we sin sins of commission and omission. Indeed, we are at the same time sinners and saints and mostly our sinner nature wins out. Yet, God calls us to faith and God calls us to be strengthened in our faith and He strengthens us through our regular and diligent use of His means of grace, being in divine service and Bible Class, and yet, here too we refuse and reject, yet, all the while looking for some place to take some credit for our faith and faith life. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we constantly show our weak faith and our lack of faith as we constantly strive to depend on ourselves.
But, thanks be to God that He is so loving, caring, generous and gift giving. He is always looking for ways to come to us, to give to us, to strengthen us, to do for us. He gives us each day as a gift to live to His glory. He stirs in us to live lives of faith. He motivates us and works good works in and through us. And He constantly forgives us when we fail. How great it is that when we sin, and no matter how often in a day we might sin, (not that our sinning is great, but it is great that) we can think about our baptism and be reminded that God has washed away our sins, even before we sin, our sins have been forgiven, no matter what or how big we might think our sin is. It does not depend on us, but it is what God has done for us, especially what He has done in Christ.
What a great text to hear on this Father’s Day, because as father’s we too make mistakes and actually we sin and even when we sin we can know that God has already forgiven us. Again, what a great text we hear, a text that reminds us of God’s great love for us. A text which reminds us that nothing depends on us, but it all depends on God who continually reminds us that He is with us, that He is watching over us, that He will continue to take care of us. Our text reminds us that God’s love has been around since He created the world and that ever since the fall into sin His plan of salvation included our being saved by the atoning work of His Son, the tender twig. And our text reminds us that with God, all things are possible. So we say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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