Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17; 3:1-7 Sermon

The First Sunday in Lent

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

It All Goes Back to the Beginning

Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17; 3:1-7

⁷ Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. ⁸ Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

3^:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  ² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  ⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (NIV)

People tend to have a genuine sense of pride when they speak of their family history.  Family history is unique in the way that it seems that pride isn’t necessarily determined by trade or profession.  In other words, our family line doesn’t have to include royalty to speak of it with pride; rather, we speak of our family history with pride, and the trade simply becomes a part of that.  So if my great grandfather was a cheese-maker, I take pride in cheese-making because that’s what my great grandfather did.  If my great, great grandfather worked tirelessly in the same factory for forty years, then I take pride in what a loyal, hard worker he was.  If our past history includes family member who served in government positions, well then, that of course was back when the government was respected and looked upon favorably, right?  You know how it goes.

But if we trace our roots back far enough, to our first parents, there really isn’t much in which to stake our pride, is there?  Starting with the way Adam was created, we aren’t left with a very promising picture.  “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground” (2:7).  For being considered the crown of creation, it’s quite a humble picture, isn’t it?  Dust, after all, is that stuff we try shake off of sandals and rugs.  It’s what we begrudgingly sweep up off the floor.  It’s the stuff that annoyingly coats our shelves and dressers and picture frames and so on if we don’t frequently wipe it off.  It’s also why on last Wednesday you may have seen some people with an ash cross on their forehead or wrist.  The Church has long seen ashes and dust as symbols associated with penitence, as they serve as reminders of our mortality.  Going back to our roots in Genesis we see why: dust is what we started out as, and dust is what we’ll end up as one day.

We are not, however, merely dust.  Although dust was the medium of choice for our Creator, it isn’t all that we’re made of: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (2:7).  Once God formed man into the desired shape, he was still nothing but dust… until God breathed the breath of life into him.  And that is what sets us apart from all other creatures.  It isn’t the dust, for that we share with every other living being.  The breath of God, however, he reserved for the crown of his creation.  We were set apart.  We were special.  We uniquely fashioned by God and brought to life by his own breath.  That divine detail shows how highly favored we’ve been by God from the beginning.

And so while Genesis reveals our humble roots, it also reveals that God set man apart from the beginning.  That God breathed his own breath of life into man shatters the silly worldview that man is simply just another creature, and that we’re all a part of the earth, and that we should value all life the same, so that we can justify the murder of an unborn child because we put it on par with the animal that tried to cross a busy highway and ended up as road kill.  The world may push to view the two as essentially the same, but God’s record of his bringing man to life doesn’t support any notion of equality between man and animal.  There are no common roots if we simply trace the family tree back far enough, for only one of God’s creatures received his breath of life, and it was man.

So the manner by which man was created provides a helpful backdrop for Lent.  On the one hand, dust reminds us of our mortality, which entered into the picture with the Fall.  It reminds us of our sin which begged for a Savior.  On the other hand, that God breathed into us his own breath of life shows that we are uniquely special to him.  That truth is emphasized to the greatest extent imaginable during Lent, when we see God willingly give up his own Son for us.

The rest of the creation account also provides evidence of how uniquely special we are to God, as creation was not given first and foremost to the animals or any other living creature, but to man.  “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden’” (2:8-9, 15-16).  God gave Adam everything… almost.  He was free to take in all that God had created for him in Eden, except for one tree.

And that just happens to be what we focus on, doesn’t it?  After all, it’s how we operate now in a fallen world – we don’t look first at what we have, but what we lack.  We don’t find joy in all the freedoms we have, but bemoan the restrictions placed on us.  We allow the few negatives to overshadow the abundant positives.  We struggle to see God’s gracious love through all that he freely formed for Adam, and instead wish to rally against the one restriction God gave, as if to imply that it was his fault that Adam fell, since he had the audacity to place restrictions on Adam, even if they were for his own good.

That’s the wrong way to look at God’s command to Adam & Eve.  When God commanded, “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (2:17), he wasn’t baiting our first parents, but protecting them.  If we allow ourselves to get sidetracked with the myriad questions that surround this tree, we will undoubtedly end up traveling down a path of confusion, which will only end up at a destination of discontentment.  Instead of seeking answers that haven’t been given, let us be content to rest and rely solely on what we have been given, on the words that have been revealed to us.  What do they tell us?  They tell us that God loved Adam & Eve deeply enough to warn them of the devastating consequences of eating from that one tree.  He loved them enough to forbid them from eating from it and having their eyes opened to a reality of regret and the curse and consequence of disobedience.

But that isn’t how the devil wanted them to see it.  He played it from another angle entirely.  He wanted Eve to entertain a lie – the possibility that maybe God was keeping them from eating the fruit of this one tree out of insecurity, because he didn’t want them to be like him.  Listen to how Satan sows the seeds of suspicion: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” (3:1).  But Satan is incapable of hiding his true colors, so much so, that in his very next response to Eve, he falls back into his comfort zone as father of lies and tells a huge one:  “‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (3:4,5).  God had plainly stated that they would die if they ate from the tree.  Satan plainly stated exactly the opposite.  But it may be the half-truth in which the lie was wrapped that made it difficult to detect.  He told them their eyes would be opened.  And in a sense, he was right.

Eyes were opened.  Terribly, it was true.  Adam & Eve now not only saw, but had experienced something which had previously been foreign to them: sin.  True, their eyes had not been opened to it previously, but now that they were, they wished they weren’t.  Never did the statement, “ignorance is bliss” apply more to a situation than to the longing Adam & Eve must have had for the way things were before their eyes were open to sin.  And how quickly they began to experience the effects of sin!  They felt guilt.  They felt fear.  They felt shame.  They felt… all the worst of what sin truly offered after their eyes had been “opened.”

And because they felt the worst of sin, we do, too.  We know the guilt that comes with transgression.  We know the regret that comes from having followed the will of our hearts instead of the will of our Lord.  But worse than the remorse of sin is our recognition of its devastating eternal capability.  If left unchecked, sin inevitably leads to the destination that is eternal separation from God in a very real and very unpleasant place called hell.  Think back again to God’s command in the Garden.  Was his command not to eat the fruit a command that was rooted in anything but love?  He wanted to spare our first parents – he wanted to spare all – the terrible consequence of sin.

But perhaps you still question whether or not it was really his love on display back then, back in Eden, or… something else.  Then let Lent convince you.  You may ask why God ever put a tree in the Garden and said “Do not eat,” but you do not get to ask that question and demand a response without also asking why God would allow his own Son to suffer.  You do not get to ask that question without also asking why God would allow his own Son to be sacrificed.  Those are the real questions, with an answer that makes the difference for our eternity. 

The answer was so that eyes that thought they had been opened after the Fall, only to see God as Wrath and Condemnation and Punishment, could be truly opened to see God the way he is, as Grace and Compassion and Slow-to-Anger and Forgiveness and Peace and Mercy.  The answer to the question of why God would let his own Son suffer and die is that his loving heart did what it took so that you wouldn’t have to.  He showed his love for man at Creation.  He echoed that love and amplified it at Calvary.

What happened at Eden certainly is not cause for celebration; there was certainly nothing in which to stake our pride.  What happened at Calvary, however, our Savior’s death – there is a piece of history of which we can rejoice and be proud. Amen.

                                                               

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)