Cedar Christmas!
Pinecone Christmas ornaments are kid-proof and cat proof. If they fall, they don’t shatter and, when painted, can offer a festive spin on the pine trees we bring into our homes to decorate in honor of Christmas. We can thank Queen Victoria (and thus the Anglicans if you can believe it!) for appropriating this pagan tradition in celebration of the winter solstice for the birth of Jesus Christ (read more on the pagan origins here). I can see why she did it. Pine trees preach. Jesus was born in a stable and placed in a manger - both made of wood. He taught hundreds and did miracles to save his disciples from boats - made of wood. Most importantly, he gave his life to save ours on a cross - made of wood. So the originally pagan “tree-inside-a-house” symbol preaches. Queen Victoria may have been the first one to popularize this symbol, but there are even better roots in Scripture.
Ezekiel 17
Ezekiel was a prophet to the Jews who were exiled from their homeland. He used the imagery of the cedar to describe the darkness of sin and the light of redemption. They had rejected God, disobeyed his voice, and ignored his warnings over and over and over. The books of Kings and Chronicles recount this incriminating pattern. God finally gave them over to the consequences of their actions. They trusted the wrong people (Egypt in this case), and lost their land because of it. Israel was divided in two kingdoms by then: Israel to the north and to the south, Judah (where Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Temple were).
Here is a brief history... (it will tie into the-cedar-tree-promise, I promise!) 1
722BC Assyria conquers Israel to the North. It exiles 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel into surrounding nations. Those 10 tribes of Israel assimilate into their captors’ cultures and lose their Jewish heritage. Assyrians and other tribes settle in the northern kingdom and assimilate with the remaining Jews. They become the Samaritans.
701 BC Jerusalem did NOT fall to the Assyrians (this made Jews in Judah feel invincible). Over the course of time Babylon became more powerful than Assyria. King Jehoiakim of Judah called on Egypt to help fight against the Babylonians against God’s warning (Ezekiel 23). Egypt did not help. Babylon conquered Judah and Jerusalem.
598BC Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and carted the religious, political, and military elite to Babylon, including King Jehoiakim and Ezekiel.
593BC Ezekiel was in exile in Babylon when he was called to prophesy
586BC Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
539BC Edict of Cyrus of Persia: Jewish exiles allowed to return home to rebuild Jerusalem and their Temple, though many stayed in Babylon.
Darkness
God tells a parable about how his beloved people rejected him in Ezekiel 17. He describes King Jehoiakim like the topmost branch of cedar. An eagle plucks him off and plants him in Babylon. This allegory shows how God exiled the King of Judah because he did not trust God to protect him, ignored his warnings, and rejected God. Jehoiakim was a true codependent. He was too addicted to the familiar, abusive relationships to let go and embrace the healthy, life giving, yet supernatural relationship with God. People pleaser. Avoidant. Enabler. Numbing-outer. Fearful. Anxious. Can you relate to Jehoiakim? I can. It is the darkness of sin. And it gets worse.
God entered into judgement with Jehoiakim—a terrifying prospect. God exposed his sin and Jehoiakim died under its weight in Babylon: “I will spread my net over him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there for the treachery he has committed against me” (Ezekiel 17:20). The whole Old Testament story is part of the redemptive story that culminates in Jesus: God gives land, Temple, and nation to the Jews, they turn all of them into idols, and then he takes them all away as punishment for their rejection of him. Yes, God punished sin in Jehoiakim and the Jews. But it was only a taste of his wrath against sin. It helped us understand it, to see it. It shed light on the darkness of our codependency with anything/anyone else in all creation other than God. Darker than the unbridled greed of imperialistic nations, darker than our twisted relationships, worse than the forces of evil is to be judged by God’s holy standard of love. It is to see that evil in ourselves and have no mercy. “There is none who is righteous, not one; no one who seeks God, all have turned aside” (Romans 3:10-12). All of us are codependent with other things. Will God enter into judgement with us and will we die under the weight of his holiness? The cedar tree in Ezekiel 17:1-21 symbolizes the failures of humankind. The cedar symbolizes how God will judge sin.
This may seem a bit dark for Christmas, but the Christmas story is not all Enya and cookies. It is light in the darkness. (So don’t unplug your Christmas tree yet.)
Our world exposes our sin in order to condemn. We have a “cancel culture” where our sins are plastered on Instagram and never forgiven. God is not like us. He exposes sin in order to save us from it.
God knows we cannot heal ourselves from this sickness of the heart. We are cedars stuck in the ground, helpless to change ourselves. We could not, so Jesus did. He became a cedar too. Ezekiel 17:22-24 shows that this was his plan all along.
Redemption.
God uses the same imagery of the lofty topmost branch of the cedar to symbolize Christ in Ezekiel 17:22. The passage changes from judgement to salvation. He redeems the imagery of the cedar branch. God does the impossible. He plucks the highest branch of the most majestic tree—His own Son, King of Kings and Lord of Lords—and plants him in the non-nutritious dirt on the top of a mountain (Ezekiel 17:22). On a mountain the angel announced Jesus’ birth to shepherds, on a mountain Jesus was transfigured into radiant glory before his three closest friends, on a mountain Jesus took our place and took God’s full judgement against our sickness of the heart. Jesus is the “Righteous branch” planted in our dirt (Jeremiah 23:5). He did what King Jehoiakim, could never do. By his death, he satisfied the holiness of God, and gave us his perfect righteousness instead. Jesus forgave. By his death he ransomed many for God, from every tribe and nation and gathered them in safety, in restored dignity, in life unending, and in peace.
“On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest” (Ezekiel 17:23).
From now on, you have an advocate in your sin. This is God’s pinecone promise to his children: he will never judge or condemn you for your failings. Jesus stands with you, his hand on your shoulder, his life in your death, his forgiveness on you like wedding day garments. When he attacks and exposes sin, it is because he loves you and will free you with forgiveness. Jesus revealed God to us: he is a God of mercy over judgement, of steadfast love for you that never lets you go. So plug in your Christmas tree (which is probably not a cedar, but still a conifer :) for he has made our darkness into light.
Thus says the Lord God: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out. 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. On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.” Ezekiel 17:22-24
1) Robert W. Jensen, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Ezekiel. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009, p. 21-22.
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