John 9:1-7, 13-17, 34-39 Sermon

The Third Sunday in Lent

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

Displaying God’s Work

John 9:1-7, 13-17, 34-39

1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided. 17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a prophet.”

34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out. 35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. (NIV)

As you are vacuuming the living room, you notice something on the carpet that leads you to ask yourself if you should test out how powerful the vacuum cleaner is, or if you should just do the easy thing and bend over to pick it up.  No brainer.  You text the power of the vacuum cleaner, and sure enough, the larger-than-usual-but-still-little object is gone.  Then, about 15-30 seconds later, the vacuum shuts off.  It must be one of two things, right?  Either the bag, which hasn’t been emptied for some time, is full, or the object you just tried to suck up got lodge in the intake or the brush.  Once you check the bag and find out that it isn’t quite full yet, then you’ve ruled out one problem, and feel pretty confident it must be that something got stuck.  After turning the vacuum upside down and taking a look, you don’t see anything stuck anywhere.  You’re left stumped and frustrated.  So you take a break and head around the corner to the other room for a bit.  Of course, just as you turn the corner, what do you notice?  You look down and see that the cord came unplugged from the outlet.  “Duh,” you think to yourself.  You were so certain that it was one of two things that caused the problem, that you completely overlooked that there might be another solution. 

The disciples must have been hit with a similar “duh” moment.  While not entirely confident that they were able to pinpoint the precise cause of the man’s blindness, they were pretty sure they had it narrowed down to one of two possibilities: either the man himself was guilty of some specific sin or it was the sin of his parents that caused his blindness.  Their line of reasoning followed what was the common perception of the day: physical challenges such as blindness were considered to have come as a result of past sins.  Either way, they were feeling pretty good about one of those two possibilities being the cause – either the man’s sin or his parents’, and to determine who was at fault, they turned to the Rabbi.

And what they found was an entirely different possibility all together. “‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him’” (v.3).  They turned the corner and saw that the cord had come unplugged from the outlet when Jesus responded.  It was a possibility they hadn’t even entertained.  As it turned out, discovering the root cause of his blindness should not have been their focus, but rather determining what purpose his blindness would serve.  In a few short moments, when suddenly that man who had not seen the light of day for so much as a second of his life, suddenly had his eyes opened, it also became clear to the disciples.  His blindness served a completely different purpose all together.  It wasn’t about a wrong that had been committed in the past, but rather about how God intended to use it for good in the present and the future.

We need to remind ourselves and one another of this possibility more often, don’t we?  When life throws us more than just a curve ball, when we feel as if we’ve just gotten hit by the pitch, we can slip into the same faulty reasoning the disciples did, thinking that it must be because of some past transgression.  Jesus’ point was that not only is that not the case, but that we also may be overlooking another possibility altogether: that God may be desiring to put his works on display.  Hard as it may be to accept when we’re feeling like a punching bag on the receiving end of blow after blow, it may very well be that God’s whole intent is to put his grace on display through our challenges.

Just how might he do that?  While it may not be directly through a miraculous recovery like the man healed of his blindness, aren’t there other ways God can put his works on display to us?  Don’t we, for example, have a tendency to bend our ear toward God and his Word a little more while going through adversity?  So if God has used that adversity to draw me to his Word more frequently, in the end of things, hasn’t that adversity been a blessing to me in that regard?  And chances are that if I’m in the Scriptures more often, my prayer life is likely improving as well.  So again, even if God doesn’t bring about miraculous healing like he did for the blind man, he may still be providing me with much-needed spiritual medicine.

Consider also that whatever burden God allows in your life, whether big or small, may be just as much intended to make an impact on somebody else’s life as on yours.  Or, to put it another way, it may not just be that God intends to put his works on display to us, but possibly through us.  One time in a Bible class someone shared the story of a nurse in a hospital who actually ended up seeking a Christian church because working in the hospital had allowed her to witness how Christians handle pain, suffering, and death much differently than others.  God was putting his works on display for her through others. 

God put his miracle on display to and through the blind man when he restored his sight.  There was more to the story than just his physical blindness.  I don’t believe that when Jesus said his blindness “happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him’” (v.3), that Jesus only had in mind that God’s miraculous work of restoring sight would be all that was on display.  Otherwise, couldn’t we assume the story would have stopped right there?  The man was healed.  Sight was restored.  God is powerful and miraculous.  End of story.  Except that the healing was really only the beginning of the story, wasn’t it?  That part of the account only filled seven verses of John’s Gospel, but there was much more to it after that – 34 verses, to be exact.  So if there was more than just the miraculous healing that God wished to put on display, what else was it?

Is it safe to say that it wasn’t just the work Jesus did on the man’s eyes, but the work he did on his heart that really stands out?  After all, isn’t that truly why Jesus came, to change hearts?  Sure, he performed countless wonderful miracles, but those weren’t the main attraction; they were merely intended to serve as opening acts, so to speak.  The real purpose was later put on display at Calvary.  Jesus crucified, hanging to die, put all previous works of Jesus during his ministry to shame.  Compared to Jesus’ death, no miracle of Jesus really belongs in the same conversation.  That’s because it wasn’t only my Savior who was nailed to the cross, but my sin along with him.  My selfish tendencies that fail to recall that God desires to display his goodness even through times of toil and testing; my self-serving interests, my ego and on and on… all these sins were nailed with him to the tree.

But his death was just the beginning!  As proof that all sin had been paid for, the Father didn’t allow death to keep its cold, clammy grip on him, but pried apart death’s hold on Jesus and raised him up three days later.  Jesus lives, and so will we.  Our sin no longer condemns us.  An amazing thing happened on that day when Jesus undid blindness and restored sight, but the greatest thing happened when Jesus undid death and restored life.

And through faith in all of that saving work that would be carried out on his behalf, Jesus changed the heart of the man born blind.  Initially, the man acted on trust when Jesus told him to wash his eyes in the Pool.  He then showed gratitude and confidence in defending Jesus’ actions before the skeptical Pharisees.  Finally, he showed saving faith and evidence that Jesus had changed his heart when Jesus asked him, “‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Who is he, sir?’ the man asked. ‘Tell me so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said, ‘You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.’ Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him” (v.35b-38). The man’s physical condition had changed, yes, but what mattered eternally was that his spiritual condition had been changed as well.  Jesus had transformed his heart…    

…just as he did ours.  Now it’s true – God has been amazingly good to us in our lives.  We cannot log or keep record of every detail of his goodness, but we can thank him for his greatest goodness to us: the same gift he gave to the blind man, the gift of faith.  For we were blind, too, spiritually unable to see our sorry state or the harsh end that would have been ours apart from Jesus; but faith opened our eyes to see the forgiveness and salvation that are God’s gifts to us.  God has put his works on display to us, too.

Now, like the blind man, let us recognize that God’s desire is not only to put his works on display to us, but also through us.  We’ve already been set apart for salvation.  We already believe.  God has already worked his gift of saving faith in our hearts.  So why are we still here?  It’s not so that God can somehow save us more than we’ve already been saved.  Heaven is already ours.  So why are we still here?  From the moment he made you his, he has kept you here on earth for the purpose of putting his work on display through you.  Allow God’s gifts of forgiveness and salvation to free us from our selfish indifference to countless others who remain spiritually blind, and put God’s those gifts of forgiveness and salvation on display for others to see and hear.  Tell them about the One who made you see, so that one day, they might share the same confession as the blind man and each of us: “Lord, I believe.”  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)

Genesis 12:1-8 Sermon

The Second Sunday in Lent

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

Put Me First

Genesis 12:1-8

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. ² “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
 and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. ⁵ He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. ⁶ Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. (NIV)

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”  This statement clearly expresses the importance of making a good first impression, and rightly so, as first impressions can make all the difference.  It’s said that the impression an employer gets in the first several minutes from an interviewer may have more to do with the potential for hire than even the résumé or the rest of the interview itself.  The initial impressions two people have of each other on a date is going to go a long way in determining how long that date will last and if any more dates will follow.  The realtor showing a house knows that in order to woo potential buyers, curb appeal and the impression that comes with the first step through the front door can make all the difference in receiving offers.  First impressions matter.

So what is your first impression of Abram as we are introduced to him for the first time in the pages of Scripture here in Genesis 12?  What do we think of this 75 year-old man whom God called out to pull up his tent stakes and start marching?  Oh, and mind you, God hadn’t initially revealed to Abram exactly where he’d be going; just that he’d be going “to the land I will show you” (v.1).  Based on the significance of the promise (promises, really) God gave to Abram, I suppose we could conclude that Abram must have been quite special, and that God himself must have had a pretty high opinion of him.  After all, look at the extent of God’s promise to Abram: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (v.2-3).  That’s quite a promise God gave to Abram.  Regardless of our impression of Abram, it would seem that he must have left quite an impression on God.

And one might just draw that conclusion… if not paying any attention to the order of things.  We notice, after all, that God gave the promise before Abram had even had the chance to respond to his call, not after.  God’s promise was not predicated on whether or not Abram would go as he had been told.  God did not covenant a conditional with Abram.  It was not, “If you…, then I.”  Rather, God called out his command, but then immediately attached a promise to it.  The promise was the prompt for Abram’s actions, not a response to them.  Another way to look at it is that God did not call Abram because he was worthy, but it was rather God’s call that made him worthy in the first place.  God chose to bless Abram with such promises, not because of who Abram was, but because of who God is. 

We also take note of how the whole interaction between God and Abram got started, for recognizing that makes all the difference in understanding how relationships between God and men work.  We see that God came to Abram and called him, not the other way around.  That is always the way it works, for it is an impossibility for frail and fallen man to initiate a relationship with the high and holy God.  No, God must call out to man.

Now let’s review just what God called out to this man, Abram.  “Go from your country,” (v.1) he said.  While this may be the broadest aspect of God’s call to Abram, that doesn’t mean it was any easier to give up.  Abram was being asked to leave the only land that was familiar to him.  Geographically speaking, he knew the lay of the land; it was his home turf.  He had become accustomed to where things were and how long it took to get everywhere.  We might say he knew which post office was closest, where the cheapest gas was, which grocery stores had the best prices, and where all his favorite local hangouts were.  In calling him to up and relocate, God was asking him to give up all the comfort and security that comes with being in a familiar place.

In addition to being called to “Go from your country,” God called Abram also to leave “your people” (v.1).  It’s hard enough to leave a place you know, let alone people you know – people who aren’t strangers, but neighbors.  Even if there’s no deep connection with the mailman, he’s a familiar face.  The same car pulling out at the same time in the morning during the same commute to work provides a sense of habit and routine.  The neighbors walking their dogs, riding their bikes, and jogging by with regularity all make up the community.  And Abram was being called to give all of it up.

Perhaps most trying of all, God asked Abram to leave “your father’s household” (v.1).  Abram was being asked to leave behind his family.  As familiar as home may be, one can eventually get used to a new area so that it will, after time, cease being new and unfamiliar and will become home.  And those people that Abraham knew in his home community, his neighbors and acquaintances, eventually new people and new faces will start to become familiar enough that they feel like home.  Family, though, cannot be replaced.  Parents are parents.  Siblings are siblings.  Family is family, and Abram was being asked to leave behind a significant portion of his family, and there was no guarantee that he’d ever see them again.

So what was God really asking of Abram when he called him to leave country, people, and family behind?  He was asking for first place in his life.  Not only was God calling him to be willing to part with all that was near and dear to him, but he was also calling Abram to put him first in trusting that he would provide for him moving forward.  Even if Abram would have had Google at his fingertips to research the job market, the housing market, the neighborhoods, etc., it wouldn’t have mattered, because Abram had no clue which address to plug in.  He didn’t know where he was going.  He was being called to fully rely on God to provide all of the unknowns for him.  He was being called to put God first.

And isn’t that really what God wants of us?  As we consider what it means to grow in our faith, can’t we think of that as growing in our willingness and ability to distance ourselves from anything that would encroach on God’s rightful place of prominence in our lives?  Isn’t putting him first being willing to forsake all for his sake?  While God hasn’t necessarily called us to leave country, land, and family to move to an undisclosed location, he has called us to be ready and willing to leave anything and everything behind that could potentially compromise our faith or hijack his number one spot in our lives.

He has called us to follow in Abram’s footsteps.  Notice Abram’s remarkable response to God’s calling: he went.  “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran” (v.4).  Abram wasn’t a spring chicken, and yet, we have no recorded excuse from him whatsoever; just, “So Abram went…”  Do you remember another calling from God at a burning bush?  Moses’ response was quite different, having compiled a nice long list of excuse after excuse after excuse – anything to get out of what God was calling him to do.  We see none of that from Abram, but rather 100% compliance.  No questions.  No bartering.  No excuses.   Nothing.  Just trust.  Abram put God first and showed it by his willingness to let go of everything else.

Do you recognize why Abram’s response to God’s call seems to stand out as such an exemplary act of faith?  Isn’t it because it’s so rarely seen today, even within the Church?  God says, “Put me first.”  We say, “Alright, I’m just about to… after I get my financial house in order… once things at work slow down… at the end of my child’s sports season… when I work out some family problems – yes, then I’ll most definitely put you first, God.”  And then, surprise, surprise, when that is how we “put God first,” something else always has a way of coming up, doesn’t it?  We say “after this,” but we’re not really fooling anyone but maybe ourselves, because the “after this” approach isn’t really a matter of obstacles that keep popping up, but rather a failure on our part to put God before all those obstacles; to put him first.  And you know what’s ironic about the whole thing?  If we stopped to actually put God first, we might find that all those challenges that used to keep “popping up” are suddenly no more.

Instead, we run the risk of so habitually putting everything before God, that he may finally no longer condescend to playing second fiddle, refuse to allow himself to be ignored any longer, and take his gospel elsewhere.  Nothing imaginable would be more terrible than that, the prospect of being permanently separated from God.

So where do we turn when we reflect on our tragic track record of putting God first?  Do we look to Abram and tell ourselves, “I need to be more like him?”  Better than that, let’s focus on what Abram focused on: God’s promises.  One of the promises wrapped up in that cluster is for you and all people today.  God told Abram, “and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (v.3).  You have been blessed through Abram, for from Abram’s line came the blessing of forgiveness and salvation.  From Abram’s line came the delivery of God’s promise of redemption.  From Abram’s line came the Savior, Jesus.  Through Jesus, we are blessed.

Jesus always put his Father first.  One of the most notable instances happened in Gethsemane, where we gather around and see him agonizing in prayer, clearly pressed beneath the weight of great spiritual and emotional strain.  He asks his Father if there is any other way, but always puts him first, ultimately begging that the Father’s will come before his own.  Jesus put the Father first.  By faith you reap the benefits of Jesus’ devotion to his Father.  By faith in Jesus, you have put God first.  By his obedience, Jesus did for you what you could not, and by his death, he paid for every wrong that you did do and all that you left undone, including our sin of putting God second, third, fourth, and anywhere else down on the list. 

It was God’s promises to Abram that enabled him to put God first and trust wholeheartedly that God would lead and provide.  It is God’s promise to you and me in Christ Jesus that our sin has been forgiven, and by grace, through faith, God is our number one priority.

Abram displayed that saving faith by pulling up his tent pegs and moving out.  He then displayed that saving faith by setting up an altar and worshiping God when he arrived in the land to which God brought him.  We, too, show that saving faith in a number of ways.  We desire to be fed more and more with the food of God’s Word in worship and Bible study.  We intentionally look for opportunities to serve.  We intentionally look for others to tell about Jesus.  We intentionally look to grow in the grace of giving from wherever we’re at to the next stage – from occasional and sporadic giving to regular giving, and from regular giving to increased giving, and from increased giving to 10% giving, and from 10% giving to extravagant and generous giving.  In all these things we show God’s grace at work in our lives as we grow as believers.  Then, like Abram, we’re willing to go when and where ever God asks, willing to put all behind and follow him, because that’s what happens when grace moves us to put God first. 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)

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)