Ezekiel 17:22-4 (Fourth Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 6—Series B)

“God’s Plan of Salvation is For You”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield CT

June 16, 2024

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Old Testament reading recorded in Ezekiel 17:

²²Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “I Myself will take part of the top of the high cedar and set it out. From the topmost of its shoots I will pluck off a tender sprig, and I Myself will plant it upon a high and lofty mountain. ²³On the high mountain of Israel I will plant it. And it will produce branches, bear fruit, and become a magnificent cedar. And every kind of winged bird will live under it; in the shade of its branches they will nest. ²⁴And all the trees of the field will know that I, Yahweh, bring down the high tree and exalt the low tree, that I make the green tree wither and I make the withered tree blossom. I, Yahweh, have spoken, and I will do it.”

How many of you have ever heard of a theology called deism? Adherends of deism believe that God created the world and then left it alone. A deist believes that God has no desire or need for worship or other specific behavior on the part of followers, nor is God involved in flesh-and-blood history because of His indifference to human affairs and because of His weakness. Some deists that you might know the names of include Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and John Adams. Mark Twain and Thomas Edison were deists as was Neil Armstrong, who first set foot on the moon. According to the most recent American Religious Identification Survey from 2008, 12% of Americans are deistic. They believe that God doesn’t care about the world He created, isn’t interested in your well-being or salvation, and is too weak to be in control of history.

Radically different from deism is the revelation of Holy Scripture which says that God the Creator is intimately involved with His creation and the flesh-and-blood history of that creation. Very clearly in the pages of the Old and New Testaments do we see that God is certainly not indifferent. He is not an impotent or puny god. He is the God who is doing! He is the God who had the plan to save humanity from the power of sin, death, and hell. He is the God who accomplished that plan in His ways, and His ways are different from ours.

What God first promised in Genesis 3:15, as we heard last Sunday, that the Descendent of Eve would one day crush the head of that ancient snake, Satan, is carried through the pages of Holy Scripture as the promise is revealed and more details are filled in throughout the course of world history. God’s promises to people like Abraham and David were not the result of some new or clever human plans. What God accomplished for the salvation of humanity is solely the new and free actions of God in faithfulness to His ancient promises: “I, Yahweh, have spoken, and I will do it.” Sounds very much like the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:24, “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”

However, what God does for the blessing and benefit of humanity does not always match up with the way that we would like to see things done. Have you ever thought to yourself, “Well, if I was God, I’d do it like this . . .”? Take Jonah, for example. He had zero interest in going to Nineveh to tell the Assyrians that God was angry over their sins and that they should repent and trust in His forgiveness, and if not, God would punish them with destruction. You remember his sermon, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” The result of God’s plan was that “the people of Nineveh believed God. . . . When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:5–10 ESV).

God’s plan was always to bring salvation in the forgiveness of sins to all people. His plan here involved the reluctant prophet, Jonah. And God’s ways didn’t suit Jonah’s ways at all. “[Jonah] was angry.And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live’” (Jonah 4:1–3 ESV). All this is to say, “God, I wanted you to destroy those wicked, sinful Assyrians! I’m so mad that you forgave them!”

God’s plan of salvation and how He accomplishes it doesn’t always suit us. His ways of justice and mercy don’t always fit with ours. We’d be very happy if God were to simply punish the wicked, that they would really get what they deserve in this life. Maybe like Jesus’ disciples James and John we want to take matters into our own hands and say, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54 ESV). And when earthly justice is not rendered, or when earthly life doesn’t go the way that we had planned, or when you don’t get the answer to your prayers that you wanted, we get mad at God. We tell God that He’s out of His ever-living mind not to see things our way. We tell God that what He does in our lives and in the lives of those we love should make sense to us because we should be able to understand it all. And then He hits us with Isaiah 55, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Is. 55:8 ESV). We hear the Word of God through St. Paul, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33 ESV). Of course, the Lord could just show up in a whirlwind as He did to Job when Job wasn’t getting things done according to the way he wanted. God said to him, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:2–4 ESV). And Job’s humbled response, “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. . . . I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 40:4; 42:3 ESV).

God is not aloof or uncaring. God has not abandoned His creation or you. He has always been involved in flesh-and-blood history, working out His plan of salvation for all people who need the rescue from sin and death. But He does not act according to our ways or thoughts. He is the God who takes a mere broken-off sprig from the top of a cedar tree to start with. He plants it in an unlikely place, on a mountain top. And can you believe it? It grows into something huge, lofty, splendid, fruitful, and protective. This is God’s work, God’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes (Ps 118:23).

So, what exactly is God doing? First, Isaiah promised, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Is. 11:1–2 ESV). Then Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness’” (Jer. 23:5–6 ESV).

We have here in the text of Ezekiel a vivid, poetic expression of the salvation that God provides through the lowliness of His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the sprig from the top of the cedar. He is the shoot of Jesse, David’s righteous Branch. Jesus, true God, humbled Himself by taking on human flesh and blood in history, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. He is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.He was despised and rejected by men” (Is. 53:2–3 ESV).

Consider the imagery that Ezekiel gives us that helps us to visualize God’s plan of salvation coming together in the saving life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Savior, Jesus, the top part of the high cedar, was planted on a mountain, Calvary; nailed to a tree, the cross; to bear humanity’s sins as His own, to suffer death and hell in the place of all people, so that everyone might receive from His holy, precious blood complete forgiveness and everlasting life. Like a tree sprig grows, bears fruit, and shelters the birds, Jesus the Son of God took on human flesh incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. He was born as a helpless infant and grew in favor with God and people. Hanging on a cross, forsaken by God the Father, Jesus shed His blood in order to bear fruit. He was lifted up, drawing all people to Himself in order to bestow on them the forgiveness of their sins and eternal life by grace through faith. All who believe and trust in Him as their Savior abide in the shade of the tree of the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus lives and is now exalted. He is like a majestic cedar in which we, like birds in the branches of a large tree, can find comfort, peace, and rest because of the forgiveness of sins He won for us and has given to us through the Gospel.

This is God’s plan of salvation. He Himself accomplished this plan for you through the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ. You, dear friend, are forgiven. Eternal life is yours as the Savior’s free gift to you through faith. What’s more, Jesus Christ is with you always, just as He promised, through the power and grace of God the Holy Spirit. When earthly justice isn’t given, when your life doesn’t go the way that you had planned, or when you don’t get the answer to your prayers that you wanted, know that you are still under the care and protection of the God who is intimately involved in history, in your history and life. His ways are not your ways. His plans are not your plans. His are better. His are wiser. And they are all being worked out for you according to the riches of God’s grace for you in Christ Jesus. The Lord has promised. He has spoken His promises to you through the Word, Jesus Christ. He will surely do it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

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