Sermons

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Paradise No More
October 6 , 2002
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
Fifth in a sermon series,
"Back to the Beginning," on Genesis 1-11

Genesis 3:14-24
I Corinthians 15:50-57

We gather around God’s Word this morning as we continue to look at the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Last week, in chapter 3, we read the story of “The Fall,” Adam and Eve’s catastrophic choice to live their lives in independence, disobeying the God who created them in His own image … and their hiding from Him. This morning, we read the second half of chapter 3, the story of the consequences of those decisions.

A dad sat in the living room with his little boy who was about three. Since it was a cold day, the dad moved aside the screen in the fireplace, and started a fire. He told the boy, as he had many times, “Do NOT go near the fireplace.” He went out to get some more logs. When he came back in, there was the boy, standing about three feet from the fire. He had a funny look on his face.

The dad said firmly, “Do NOT go any closer to that fire, DO NOT or you’ll have a big Time Out (which was like a death sentence for the boy)!” The boy looked at him. He looked at the fireplace. He looked directly at his dad with a funny glint in his eye…and took a BIG step…towards the fireplace.

I was reminded this week that the Genesis story is not the only creation story. It’s not the only one that comes out of the Middle East. There are, in fact, many stories, and some of them -- Babylonian, Mesopotamian -- bear a strong resemblance to the Genesis story … with one huge difference. In the other epics which have survived, evil also creeps into the world. But in the other stories, evil comes as a result of sheer chance … or a vindictive God … or a kind of universal random event. Only ONE story claims that evil is a direct result of human decision -- the book of Genesis.

The dad stood there, locked in a staredown with his little boy, not quite believing that he had made such a clearly defiant decision…to disobey. But he had. The dad wavered for a second. Then he walked over, picked him up, and carried him down the hall to his room for his Time Out. It wasn’t really what the little boy wanted, and his yelling and tears communicated that pretty clearly.

When we tear ourselves away from being what God created us to be … there are consequences. Adam and Eve knew some of the consequences of their actions before they acted. They tasted some of those consequences even before God opened His mouth to say anything. As soon as they had eaten the fruit, they covered themselves … hid from one another. Then they hid from God. They had utterly defied the two relationships they had been placed in, they were broken and in pieces. God must have stood there in utter amazement, shocked at this turn of events. When He finally quit staring, and opened His mouth, there were more consequences for Adam and Eve. They had gotten what they wanted … but like so many of us … after they had what they so badly wanted, it suddenly wasn’t so appealing.

The list of consequences is long. God speaks to the snake, and curses it. He speaks to the Woman, and tells her she will experience pain in childbirth, and her relationship with the man … will be disrupted and distorted. And to the Man, God says, “Because of you, the ground will be cursed.” Work shall be less fruitful, not tilling and keeping, but toiling and struggling. The snake and the ground are cursed…the man and the woman will live out (and die from) the consequences.

The worst consequence of all comes at the very end of the passage. Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden. They are barred from the Tree of Life. They will begin, in other words, to taste death … just like God had warned them. The most drastic consequence of sin is the move from life to death. Before they chose their own way, we see a picture of pure life. Life in the physical body, life in relationship with others, life with God.

Think about those three things with me for a moment. Life in the body. We don’t know everything about what God’s original intention was for humanity. We do know Adam and Eve had free access in the garden to the tree of life. Personally, I think God’s first creations were to live for eternity. Others think if not for eternity, perhaps they would at least not taste the pain of death. Maybe they would just be removed from life in the earthly body, like Enoch in the Old Testament.

There was life in relationship: man and woman together, together reflecting God’s image, becoming one flesh, naked and not ashamed, helpmates, partners, friends.

And there was life with the Living God there in the Garden of Eden. This is pictured beautifully in the Garden. The description of the Garden in Genesis includes these things: A rich oasis of growth, fertile vegetation, water, life. Precious stones are mentioned as being found there, including gold. The garden faced to the East, the Cherubim were stationed to guard it.

All of these are hints making the Garden similar to the descriptions of the Old Testament Tabernacle, and later the Temple. The precious stones are the same as those found on the walls of the Tabernacle and the Temple. The gold in Eden was like the gold that covered the sacred furniture like the Ark or Altar or Lampstand, or the priest’s garments. The Tabernacle and the Temple faced East; they were the dwelling place of God. They had their Holy of Holies sanctuary, where the presence of God was so palpable that it was nearly dangerous. Tabernacle, Temple, Garden, all places where the presence of God is found, where LIFE is found. That’s Eden … is the place of Life, it is the place where God walks with the human “in the cool of the evening breeze.”

But now, after the humans have chosen their way over God’s…everything is broken and distorted, and death has entered into the world, in the same three ways: The physical body of the humans will indeed die, as God had originally warned if they ate of the tree. Childbirth, even the very beginning of life…will carry just a tinge of death in the pain it will entail. “You are dust,” God tells Adam, “and to dust you will return”: the very words we use at a somber Ash Wednesday service to begin Lent.

The intimate social relationship between Adam and Eve began to die as soon as they sinned … hiding from God together, hiding from each other. And then in these words today, the conflict of desire for the other, yet hints of the abuse of rule and authority within their relationship.

And there is the death of the intimate relationship with God. The humans have asked to be on their own … and now they are on the way to death. For no small reason, does the book of Romans report, “the wages of sin are death.” Physical, social, spiritual … eternal.

The dad sat on the couch in the living room, apparently not hearing the screams and rantings coming from his son’s Time Out room. Apparently not hearing … yet he dabs a tear from the corner of his eye. It is not what he wanted either.

On the eastern side of the garden … death now rules Adam and Eve. We live on the eastern side. No, the human does not die … immediately, at least, upon disobeying God. But his life becomes little more than the slow process of dying. If we are to believe the scripture … death … is NOT a friend.

Our culture, I believe, is badly mistaken on this point. We have taken a lot of wishful imagination, a few pieces of positive-thinking philosophies or New Age movements, a section from a reincarnation religion, and humanistic philosophies, and mixed all of it together and partially convinced ourselves that Death is not an enemy to be feared. “It is a friend to be welcomed. It is just the beginning of the next step. It is a natural part of the life cycle.” It makes us feel good to say that.

My grandpa was a very important person in my life, and he was probably a great illustration of this. Grandpa was a great guy … never talked about things of faith at all. I had always wanted to talk with him about Jesus, but never had … until a year or so before he died. We were driving on a little back road near Genesee, Idaho. It was hot and dusty, and our children were little, and it wasn’t the environment to start a long conversation. But out of the blue, Grandpa says to me, “Well, Dan, I’ve been a pretty good person, I’ve tried to treat people well, so I guess when I go everything will work out okay.” I was sort of stunned, realizing that Grandpa was putting out a feeler about what I thought happened when you died. He just thought, “I guess it’ll all work out.”

The idea that death is not so bad, or is even a friend … is not a Biblical idea. In the Bible, Death is the enemy. It starts with a rebellion in the Garden, it infects the whole world, it changes the way even our short lives are lived. Death is decidedly NOT a friend, it is an enemy. The wages of sin … are death: physical, social, spiritual, eternal.

Jesus did not stand outside of Lazarus’ tomb, weeping only over the fact that he would miss his recently deceased friend. He was moved and disturbed, he was filled with compassion and anger, Jesus WEPT because this was not the way that it was meant to be. Death was not the intention of creation. And when Jesus called Lazarus out, the scripture says, “The dead man came out … and Jesus said, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ ” Death is the consequence of the fall. Death is an enemy. Death is certain and final. The curtain is dropped, the house lights have gone off, the story is OVER.

Except.

Except there is one thing that changes this. Only one. Only one thing that makes death anything except certain and final. And that is resurrection, and it’s found in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. The theater is pitch black … but oh, somebody left one little light on backstage. We can see a glimmer of something. Even here, in the pitch black of the LOCKED Garden of Eden it is there: “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” God tells the snake, “and between your offspring and hers.” The snake is often a symbol for the Devil in scripture. But it’s interesting that it says the enmity will be between the snake’s offspring (SEED) and the woman’s offspring (SEED). That’s not a normal use of language for Genesis, or for the Old Testament.

Normally, the “SEED” comes from the man. This is the first glimmer, the first foretaste … of the gospel. The “seed” not of the man and woman, but of the woman … “The Holy Spirit will come upon you … and you will be with child,” the gospel of Luke says of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And THAT offspring, Jesus … though he will be bitten and afflicted by the snake’s influence … will crush the head of Evil.

The dad can hardly contain himself, fidgeting on the couch. Finally, when the time is up, he gets up and walks purposefully down the hall to the Time Out Room. He opens the door, and looks at the teary face of his little boy. Then he puts out his arms to welcome him.

God’s heart for his creation, his people, you see … has not ever changed. Oswald Chambers once said, “Sin has switched the human race on to another tack, but it has not altered God’s purpose in the tiniest degree.” The human beings have hidden themselves, but God knows where they are and longs for them to be with them. The door of the Garden of Eden swings shut … and God immediately opens a window. Adam and Eve go away from God’s presence … and God immediately goes to look for them.

On Ash Wednesday, we put ashes on our foreheads and remind ourselves that we came from dust and return to dust…BUT the ash is applied…in the shape of a cross. It is Jesus Himself who takes on the consequences of our sin. It is Jesus who will strike the head of Satan, Jesus who Himself came as a child born of woman, Jesus who sanctified marriage, Jesus who ministered everywhere that the ground had to be wrestled for a living, Jesus who wore on his head the crown of the ground’s thorns and thistles.

The glimmer of hope is fanned to a roaring flame. Death need not be feared … NOT because it is a friend, but because it has been transformed. Jesus Christ went through death and came out the other side in resurrection, and invites us to accompany him on that journey too. Therefore, WHEN YOU KNOW CHRIST, you need not fear death. If you do not … it remains your greatest enemy.

When my grandpa put out his theological question on that hot summer day, I didn’t have much time to answer. So I just said, “Gramp, the way I read the Bible, it isn’t what you’ve done … it’s who you know.” He was interested, but a little confused. I tried again. “Gramp, I don’t think doing a pretty good job makes it all okay when we die. I think we ask Jesus to forgive us, and trust His mercy that we’ll get to be with Him .”

It’s all about who you know. Or rather, who knows us. Jesus knows us. He looks at us and knows we are paralyzed by what we have done: We have chosen the wrong way, we have believed lies, we are fearful of death. And He comes to us and says: “I am the Way … and the Truth … and the Life.” It’s because of Jesus … and ONLY because … that Paul can say:

“Where, O death, is thy victory?
Where, O death, where is thy sting?
Thanks be to God who gives us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And the dad carried the boy back to the living room, and they sat together, happy in each other’s arms in front of the fire.