God promises to be with us. But Adam and Eve forget God’s promise, and we forget it, too.
God promises to be with us. But Adam and Eve forget God’s promise, and we forget it, too.
Advent Day 2, The Fall.
God with us.
It is God with us when we try to look outside and beyond Him for what will sustain and fulfill us.
Is He still present?
Does He still care?
Or is He far off telling all of our mistakes and wrongdoings?
The first man and woman navigate these kinds of questions after they disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
They do what is right in their own eyes, doubt weasels into their minds and takes up residence in their thoughts, courtesy of the serpent sticking time bomb of a question.
Did God actually say?
And doubt wriggles into our minds.
Did God actually say?
Is God good?
Is He just and merciful?
Can we trust Him?
Will He forgive our sins?
As Genesis three opens, we meet a new character, the serpent.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast in the field that the Lord God had made.
And He said to the women, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
Genesis three, verse one.
When are you most prone to thinking, feeling or asking, did God actually say?
(gentle music) What would it look like to wait for God in those moments?
If the woman waits to consider her response, the Bible doesn't say so.
She answers the serpent.
And while she isn't exactly wrong in what she says, she does misstep in one critical way.
She expands upon God's command.
She tells the serpent, she and Adam cannot even touch the fruit.
How does the woman's expansion of God's command make her vulnerable to the serpent?
The serpent slithers in and wraps around the woman and the man.
Then he tightens his grip on them.
But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.
For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.
And you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was at the light to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
And she also gave some to her husband who was with her.
And he ate Genesis 3:4-6.
What convinces the man and woman to eat the fruit?
(gentle music) Instead of waiting on God, the man and the woman listen to the serpent.
They let his voice guide them and it leads to their ruin.
They take, they grasp, they eat.
Everything changes in that moment.
The man and woman lose the abundance and generosity that characterise their lives.
They're so fig leaves together.
They hide their bodies, which God declared very good.
In your life, when has a seemingly good fruit turned out to be poisonous?
What happened?
One thing however, doesn't change.
God, God reenters the picture.
Not that he was absent from it.
The man and woman just stopped looking to him for their daily needs.
Genesis 3:8-9 says, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"
God could charge the man and the woman with wrongdoing and he would be justified in doing so.
He doesn't.
He invites them into a conversation.
Where are you?
What does God's response to Adam and Eve tell you about who he is and what he is like?
Perhaps most especially when you have disobeyed him. (gentle music) The man and the woman's sin and their sin as consequences.
They are expelled from the garden and into the wilderness.
The man will toil over the earth but the earth will resist his efforts.
The woman will experience pain and her desire will put her at odds with the man.
Yet not all is lost.
Even in the expulsion from the garden, grace abounds and hope remains.
God expels the man and the woman lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever separated from him, the land and one another.
God replaces their fig leaves with a better covering.
Garments made from animal skins.
God promises someone will come who will defeat the serpent and his wily ways.
How might God's promises and tender care have restored Adam's and Eve's hope as well as their relationship with him?
Centuries later, the promised one, Jesus arrives.
Born as an infant, growing up in the home of Mary and Joseph, Jesus and God with us.
As an adult, Jesus goes to the wilderness and begins a great reversal.
The devil tempts him once again asking, did God actually say?
And Jesus replies, yes, actually, God did say.
Every time the devil tries to lure Jesus away from God, Jesus replies with the words of God.
God's words are bred, says Jesus.
God is to be trusted, not tested.
God alone is to be worshiped.
Jesus was tempted in the same ways the first man and woman were in the same ways we are.
Yet Jesus chose God every time.
What hope or encouragement do you find in Jesus's obedience?
Jesus continues the reversal in another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane.
The hour has come, the moment of Jesus' greatest test, will he submit to God or will he take and eat?
Jesus empties himself even unto death because he rests secure in who he is, fully God and fully man.
He is God with us.
If Jesus can rest secure in who he is, why can't we?
What gets in our way?
What would change in your life if you rested more securely in who God says you are?
What can you do in this season of Advent to move in that direction?
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, you do not change.
Yes, you are just.
Yes, sin must be addressed and paid for.
Yet you also are good and kind.
You are God with us.
You sent Jesus who reverses what Adam and Eve started.
Jesus said yes to you at every bend and turn and question.
Help us to say yes to you too, living into the life of abundance and generosity that you provide.
Amen.