I don’t know how many of you know the back story of the House of Israel. You’ll know something if you’ve seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat where Pharaoh is portrayed by an Elvis look-alike. The show takes off from there: It’s imaginative, hilarious, and energetic but it’s still also based on the true story of the 12 sons of the ancient Patriarch Jacob (from multiple wives). The older sons were jealous of the younger, favored one, Joseph. They conspired to throw him into a pit and kill him but in the end chose to sell him into slavery in Egypt instead. There he makes lemonade out of those nasty lemons, but you’ll have to read the Old Testament for the rest of his story.

Sadly, the sibling rivalry doesn’t end there. Later the nation of Israel is ruled by a greedy king who discovered, as many have since, the great wealth to be had through heavy taxation. The tribe of Ephraim took great offense, picked up their marbles and huffed off to Samaria, just northwest of their homelands around Jerusalem. Nine other tribes went with them and formed a new nation specifically called Israel (as opposed to the more general use of the term). They ultimately became The Lost Ten Tribes as they were scattered by the idolatrous kingdom of Assyria because of their apostasy and wickedness.

Remaining in their first homeland were the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, presided over mostly by Judah’s priestly class. Christ was born there, launched His three-year ministry, then was condemned for blasphemy, and executed by the people He had come to save from sin and death. Why did the priests not recognize the Messiah they had long prayed and sought for? The short answer is pride in their own learning and expecting Him to come as a great warrior and free them from the oppressive rule of Rome, but Christ brought spiritual salvation, not political.

Christ left behind many dedicated converts and so was born Christianity whose followers hid and scattered. Another great schism began between blood brothers: Christianity and Judaism, really just more sibling rivalry in ecclesiastical garb.

Fast forward almost 2000 years. Those same divisions exist today: Judah increasingly being centered in Israel with Jerusalem at its head and Joseph’s son Ephraim’s descendants making up a large component of the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Isaiah says:

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways,
and we will walk in his paths:
for out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
(Isaiah 2:2-3, also Micah 4:1-2, and the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 12:2-3)

This scripture refers to revelation given to our LDS prophets that Zion (Ephraim as leader) will be built in America and be one of two spiritual capitals in the world during the prophesied Millennium of 1000 years of peace and goodness – the other being in Jerusalem headed by the tribe of Judah. And many people are still watching for the Messiah to return and for the Restoration of the Ten Tribes “from the land of the north”:

In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel [Ephraim],
and they shall come together out of the land of the north 
to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.
(Jeremiah 3:18)

Jeremiah goes on to describe the greatness of this event – so great it will eclipse the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt:

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said,
The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
But, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north,
and from all the lands whither he had driven them:
and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.
(Jeremiah 16:14-15)

Many of us in the Christian world are awaiting the return of our Messiah to unite these two tribes with the 10 others, but I’m here to testify that, on a small scale, it has already begun! My introduction to this came by listening to deep LDS gospel scholars who have discovered the connection of some my church’s history with the occurrence of Hebrew “Feast Days.” Two articles in my church’s magazine started some on this journey:

(1) Symbols of the Harvest: Old Testament Holy Days and the Lord’s Ministry, by Lenet H. Read. Read it Here, but be aware that other scholars align the Passover Feasts with the last week of Christ’s somewhat differently.
(2) The Golden Plates and the Feast of Trumpets, by Lenet Hadley Read. Read it HERE.

Many Jewish people are accepting that Jesus Christ is their long-awaited Messiah. Many Christians are recognizing the tribe of Judah as brothers with a common heritage and are also mindful of the greatness of this particular tribe of Israel, long leaders in religion, business, the arts, and more. They have laboriously climbed out of the deep pit of the condemnation they incurred at the death of their Messiah, and have embraced growing goodness and devotion to God which, I believe, will be crowned by reclaiming their leadership position in the House of Israel restored.

So, the title of this blog originally comes from my summer in Ocean City, Maryland where I worked as a waitress and enjoyed leaning to swim in the ocean. It was salty – no mystery there – but the big learning experience was being knocked down by breaking waves and ground into the sandy beach, an experience you want to learn from quickly! I then decided to watch a wave approach and dive right into the middle of it as it broke over my head. Cowabunga – success! In the blink of an eye, I was on the other side and feeling more like a dolphin than a human volley ball. Next I started to look farther out to sea and watch the slight swells on the water’s surface – waves in their infancy. Often, one would be bigger and more powerful looking than the others. I would wait for that one and it never disappointed me – it was extra big and extra thrilling to dive into.

I liken this small swell of interest building between Christians and Jews with those long ago oceans swells, and I have the same confidence that this will be even more thrilling to dive into someday as it breaks upon an amazed people. Just like a fractured family, old wounds will be discussed, grieved over, then healed by the overarching love of God – the same God for all! We can then enter the glorious world of the promised Millennium, working together for the good of all mankind and not just a privileged few. It will be a wholesome world where love and fairness reign, and creation steps into endless fulfillment, “worlds without number.”