And the Two Shall Become One

Scripture: Ezekiel 37: 15-28

Sermon: And the Two Shall Become One

Topics: divisions, unity, Jews, Gentiles, Church

Preached: November 15, 2020

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble

Ezekiel 37 is a very important chapter and very hopeful chapter.

God first gives Ezekiel a Prophetic Vision of dry bones suddenly coming to life.

Then God gives Ezekiel a Prophetic Word or parable of two sticks becoming one.

The Vision and Parable fit together.

Though we will be spending most of our time this morning on the second part of Ezekiel 37 – the parable of the two sticks – we do need to see how this second part fits with the first part – the vision of the dry bones.

So let’s first remind ourselves when Ezekiel receives this Vision and this Parable.

He receives it after Jerusalem has been completely destroyed.

He receives it after Judah – the Southern Kingdom — has been totally devastated.

The Northern Kingdom had already been wiped out by the Assyrians over 100

years earlier.

With the Northern Kingdom already gone, and with the Southern Kingdom

obliterated, it looked like Israel as a nation was finished, done, dead.

That is why the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones is so timely.

God calls this a vision of the “whole house of Israel.”

It is a vision of that which is dead coming to life.

It is a resurrection story.

That is part one of Ezekiel 37.

Part two of Ezekiel 37 is all about what this new resurrected people will look like.

To show Ezekiel and the exiles what they will look like in the future, God gives Ezekiel the Prophetic Parable of the Two sticks.

Ezekiel 37: 15-28

15 The word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁶Mortal, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the Israelites associated with it’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with it’; ¹⁷and join them together into one stick, so that they may become one in your hand. ¹⁸And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’ ¹⁹say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with it; and I will put the stick of Judah upon it, and make them one stick, in order that they may be one in my hand. ²⁰When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, ²¹then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. ²²I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. ²³They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

24 My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. ²⁵They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there for ever; and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. ²⁶I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them for evermore. ²⁷My dwelling-place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ²⁸Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them for evermore.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

So let me ask the question:

“What does this passage in Ezekiel 37 mean?

What do these two sticks represent?”

You may think the answer is pretty obvious.

Isn’t it clear that the one stick says Judah –

so that is obviously the recently destroyed Southern Kingdom.

Isn’t it clear that the other stick says Joseph —

so that is obviously the Northern Kingdom of Israel

that had been destroyed over a century earlier.

From a simple reading of the text,

we would say that after being apart for 350 years,

God is saying in this passage that he will one day

gather them together again from all the nations.

That God will re-unite them again,

into one nation with one king.

We may read this and think it sounds a bit like some modern

reunification efforts:

like when North Vietnam reunited with South Vietnam in 1976;

or when East Germany reunited with West Germany in 1989.

We may think it sounds a bit like the dream many Koreans have

of North Korea once again reuniting with South Korea

sometime in the future.

That is what this passage sounds like.

It sounds like one people being split apart over the course of history,

but then miraculously coming together again

as one nation with one ruler.

HAVE THE TWO KINGDOMS RE-UNITED?

The question then becomes – has this parable of the two sticks been fulfilled?

Has it actually happened?

Has it come to pass?

If we see this passage as only being about

the reunification of the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom

then it is hard to see it as coming to pass.

The Northern Kingdom is often called the Lost Ten Tribes for a reason.

Once they fell to the Assyrians, they ceased to exist as a nation of any kind.

The people who came to live in the area of the Northern Kingdom

came to be known as the Samaritans.

Anyone who knows the New Testament,

knows that at the time of Jesus,

the Jews (Southern Kingdom Jews, the returned-exile Jews)

despised these Samaritans.

The Jews of the New Testament thought that the Samaritans were no better than

the Gentiles.

SEEING THE TEXT THROUGH NEW TESTAMENT EYES

So perhaps this text is not strictly or literally about the reunification of

the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel.

Then what is it about?

The way we read the Old Testament is through the New Testament.

We read the Old Testament with New Testament eyes.

When we read this passage with New Testament eyes,

we suddenly see that,

surprise of surprises,

this text is not really about the Southern and Northern Kingdom of Israel.

This text is actually about the Church of Jesus Christ.

And let me tell you why.

Just as the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones coming to life

anticipates the resurrection of Jesus and the foundation of the Church,

So too, the prophetic parable of the two sticks coming together and forming one

people anticipates Pentecost, and the great coming together of both Jew and

Gentile in and through the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

A New Testament passage that has remarkable parallels to Ezekiel 37

and that shows us these very things

is the 2^nd chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.

Ezekiel 37 starts with the vision of bones coming to life, a death-to-life story.

Ephesians 2 begins with Paul reminding us that

we were all dead in our trespasses,

and even though we were dead,

we’ve been made alive in Christ and his resurrection.

So Paul also starts with a death-to-life story.

Ezekiel 37 goes on to talk about the two sticks or two nations becoming one.

Ephesians 2 also goes on to talk about two nations,

but these are the two nations of the Jews and the Gentiles.

Paul writes about the these two groups becoming one people –

even though they come from many different nations.

Paul writes about how this one people – the church –

is ruled by one King, Jesus, the Son of David.

Paul writes about how this one people – the church –

is actually the spiritual dwelling place, the temple, of God.

Ephesians 2 parallels Ezekiel 37 so closely that

Paul shows us how everything spoken of in Ezekiel 37 can be seen as

fulfilled in Jesus Christ

and in the church of Jesus Christ.

That is the great surprise of God’s great reunification plan:

We thought it was about gathering the southern and northern kingdoms

from all nations into one people.

But it turns out, it is about gathering all nations,

Jew and Gentile,

slave and free, rich and poor, male and female,

into one people.

It shows that we tend to think small and dream small.

But God thinks BIG.

God dreams BIG.

He is about reconciling ALL the divisions of the world

and drawing the whole world together

through the reconciling work of his Son, our Lord and our King.

LIVING with DIVISIONS

I know all this talk about being drawn together sounds so idealistic.

It sounds so idealistic because we know there are still so many divisions in the world.

There are the political divisions between red and blue,

divisions that we cannot seem to stop talking about.

Then there are the racial divisions of our land –

divisions that we cannot seem to start talking about.

But for so many of us, the divisions that bother us the most

and pain us the most,

are those that are closer to home.

I was talking to a friend recently.

He was named the executor of his parents-in-law’s estate.

These parents-in-law recently both passed away,

and now there is a major family feud happening.

Half the family is accepting the will.

Half the family is contesting the will.

And there my friend is, caught in the middle.

Sometimes we know what the feud is about.

Sometimes we hardly know what divides us.

Over the years, I have spoken to so many parents

who have not heard from a son or a daughter in decades.

Parents who do not even know where their child is,

or how to get hold of them.

These parents live with the pain of that estrangement

and they do not even quite know why.

They dream of speaking to their child,

even hugging their child, one last time before they die.

There are so many divisions we live with.

There are so many relationships we think are dead, beyond reviving, beyond hope.

In light of these national divisions

in light of these personal and family divisions

we so often feel both helpless and even hopeless.

WE CAN WE DO

In Ephesians 2, Paul describes this miraculous coming together of Jews and Gentiles, this surprising reconciliation, this surprising unity in Jesus Christ.

But Paul knows that unity takes work.

That is why later in that same letter he writes,

“Make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Make every effort.

How can we, in the divisions we face in our life, in our families, in our church, in our world, make every effort to maintain that unity?

I read about a debate, a public debate, that Richard Mouw, the former philosophy professor here at Calvin, had with a Mennonite theologian named Myron Augsburger. The debate was about two competing views:

The theory of Just War versus the theory of Pacifism.

Mouw spoke in favor of Just War, that sometimes force and war is necessary.

Augsburger spoke in favor of pacifism, that violence is never the answer.

Like so many debates, it could have been ugly and heated and difficult to watch.

But these two men decided to begin the debate differently.

They decided to both begin by

stating what they respected in the other person’s position.

They decided to both begin by

stating what they admired in the other person’s character.

Mouw writes that beginning that debate

with words of respect and admiration

made all the difference in the world.

It made all the difference because they started as brothers in Christ.^[1]

WHAT HAS GOD DONE and IS DOING

We have to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit.

In the end, however, we need to admit that

reconciliation is ultimately God’s work;

and unity is ultimately God’s goal.

In the end

God will bring us together.

In the end,

His Spirit will hold us together.

The beauty of the church is that we get to join

in this unifying work right here, right now.

The wonder of the church is that we get to be

ambassadors of Christ’s reconciliation in the world.

Reading and studying Ezekiel 37 this week

reminded me that

too often we think we know what unity will look like

or at least what it should look like.

But the surprising way the prophetic word of Ezekiel 37 comes to pass

shows us that

God’s ways are greater than our ways;

God’s thoughts are greater than our thoughts;

And God’s dreams are greater than our dreams.

CONCLUSION

Dear people of God,

We know we live in a divided world.

We know it is so easy to feel both helpless and hopeless.

But please be willing to be surprised by God:

surprised by What he can draw together

and surprised by Who he can draw together.

For the truth, the eternal truth,

is that sooner or later

we will ALL be drawn together in Christ.

So why not strive to make it sooner rather than later.

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN

PRAYER

O Lord, from the dust and ashes of Ezekiel,

When all seemed lost,

You gave your people these visions of hope.

Then you fulfilled these visions in such surprising and stunning ways.

Lord, in the dust and ashes of our own lives,

Fill us with your visions of hope

Your dreams of unity

The glories of your Kingdom.

This we pray in the name of our King

Amen

1. Richard Mouw, “Why Conservatives Need Liberals” in Christian Century, Jan. 13, 2004. ↑