First Sunday in Lent (Genesis 2:7-9,15-17;3:1-7,14,15)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ  (Ro 1:7).  Amen.

The snow on Wednesday threw me off a bit.  I was getting excited about an early spring and my yearly garden.
I am just kidding.  You knew that already.  I have made my thoughts about gardening known in the past.  In summary, I would rather take a nap than till the ground.  When I woke up and saw the white stuff on the sidewalk, I was more concerned about my feet getting wet than any seeds getting sown.
One day in March is not a game changer for those who plan to spend some time with their fingers in the dirt and their spades in the soil.  [Slide 3]  It might not even be time to stick things in the earth so it is not even a setback.
One day did make a huge difference in Eden.  It was life altering.  After God gives life on the Sixth Day of creation, he guarantees life on the sad day of the fall.  There is life in the Garden—seen in the LORD God’s immense goodness and seen in the LORD God’s intense grace.  We read from …

Genesis 2:7-9,15-17;3:1-7,14,15

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, who overcame Satan and sin for us
There are certain expectations when it comes to gardens—that the seeds placed in their rows before summer will turn into flowers put on the table for decoration.  If not, why all of the effort of bending over to ready the area and all of the energy of breaking your back to weed?  There is excitement when a little shoot sticks out of the earth.  There is life.  That is the anticipation.  It was that way in Eden.

There is Life in the Garden
1.  Seen in the LORD God’s immense goodness  (2:7-9,15-17)
2.  Seen in the LORD God’s intense grace  (3:1-7,14,15)

1.  Seen in the LORD God’s immense goodness  (2:7-9,15-17)
“That day changed my life.”  That can be something positive.  Think along the lines of an engagement for couples or an advancement at work.  Those are big things, good things, in life.  There is life in the Garden seen in the LORD God’s immense goodness.
You and I only know life on this side of Genesis 3.  But God allows us a glimpse of how it was before that chapter.  It is interesting and instructive that the name “LORD God” appears 7 times.  The “LORD” underlines his mercy and “God” underscores his might.  He has the desire and the ability to do good.
That is clear in the manner in which he fashioned man.  “The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground”  (Ge 2:7).  There is the picture of a potter going about his profession—his wheel is spinning and his fingers are shaping.  [Slide 9]  There is care and there is concern as he creates an elegant vase or an everyday vessel.  The LORD God went about his labor the same with some dirt particles.  But that is significant.  While we are just dust  (that helps us not consider ourselves too highly), we are still the crown of his creation.  Special.  And not only that, he “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”  (Ge 2:7).  Body and soul  (Ge 1:26,27).  The LORD God wanted to have a vertical relationship with man.  That is still very much the case.  He longs for this connection between him and us.
The LORD God was not done.  He settled Adam in a magnificent home.  “Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed”  (Ge 2:8).  This marvelous location was paradise—better than any sandy beach by the ocean or log cabin in the woods.  God was intent on making Adam and Eve happy.  There was shelter.  But there was more.  “The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food”  (Ge 2:9).  That locale offered enjoyment and food—foliage beautiful to look at and wonderful to eat from.  He was not shortchanging them.  Good enough was not good enough.  Only the best and finest.  The LORD God offers us things that are nice and necessary.
Add another blessing—work.  “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it”  (Ge 2:15).  They didn’t swing on hammocks or sit in lazy boys.  That service was satisfying.  That activity was appealing.  It still can be.  Unfortunately we often view it as a means to an end or interruption to the day.  Think of the tone of our voice when we speak of “housework” or “homework.”  But isn’t always annoying and aggravating.  (That comes as a result of the next chapter.)
There was also an opportunity for worship.  Of the two trees in the middle, we have little info on the Tree of Life.  There is a passing reference and not much more.  But the LORD God highlights the other.  “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die’”  (Ge 2:17).  Again as we straddle Genesis 2 and 3, we might have some questions, even critiques.  But Adam and Eve initially did not see this as a bother or a burden.  It was a blessing and a benefit.  There were all those others for breakfast, lunch, or supper.  Just this one.  Only one.  It limps.  But maybe we can compare it to a pizza buffet.  Different kinds—meat, vegetable, dessert—under the bright warming lights.  The owner asks that you not grab the one that he made for his wife’s birthday.  Do we scream or shout like a child  (or adult):  “Unfair.  Unreasonable.”  No.  So it was.  Adam and Eve could choose to obey God—not because they had to, but because they wanted to.  A husband buys a rose for his wife because it brings joy, not because it is mandatory like a grade-schooler handing out valentines to everyone in the class.  If obedience is forced, it is not free.  God could have made them like a computer to control with buttons.  But he didn’t.  They could respond with gladness.  And that is what our worship is—in this structure or with our recreation or with our employment, whatever we do, we do it for the glory of God  (1 Co 10:31).
There is life on either side of Eden.  We are just on this end.  We don’t know life where all is right and well.  We understand consequences and after-effects.  But as we gaze at life in the Garden, we get the LORD God’s immense goodness.  But that doesn’t mean that imply that it is less at the present.
 There is pain in our bodies, but they are still “fearfully and wonderfully made”  (Ps 139:14).
 There are problems with our buildings, but a roof over our heads is a gift from God.
 There are difficulties during our job, but not always.  It is not a punishment for us, but a purpose for us  (Ecc 9:10).
 There is distance between us and God, but that is what Lent is about—God repairing what is wrecked.  As the psalmist had us sing:  “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared”  (Ps 130:3).  We revere and respect the LORD God.  There is awe and admiration.
There is life in the Garden.  We can appreciate it with Adam and Eve, but we can also acknowledge it for us.  We see the LORD God’s immense goodness to them and to us.
2.  Seen in the LORD God’s intense grace  (3:1-7,14,15)
“That day changed my life.”  That can be something negative.  There are days that live in infamy—historically and personally, an enemy attack or a heart attack.  But in the midst of something bad, there is something great.  There is life in the garden seen in the LORD God’s intense grace.
A turn in a chapter marks a turn for the worse.  It is the worst imaginable.  Satan couldn’t stand it with God.  So he rebelled against God and God removed him from his presence.  And since the devil could not get at God, he went after his highest creatures with the mindset of a wicked kidnapper who takes innocent hostages.  It is tragic and terrible.
There it is.  A snake  (Ge 3:1).  Our attention is drawn to it.  But more than a serpent.  One that talks and one that tempts.  This is no ordinary animal.  It is Satan  (Re 12:9; 20:2).  He slithers in to strike and hisses to harm.  He is going to drive a wedge between God and his children.  We squirm to listen, but we study to learn.
It wasn’t as innocent as it appears.  “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  (Ge 3:1).  (We have been accustomed to “LORD God.”  That is missing here.)  It is not as simple as a student who asks another:  “Did the teacher say that the homework is due tomorrow?”  That is for information.  This is not.  It is to cast doubt and create disapproval.  “Eve, are you sure?  Are you certain that you have that right?”  He calls word into question—wondering out loud if it was fair and fitting—as if he is interested in Eve’s wellbeing and welfare.  Note that he doesn’t hand her his business card:  “Hi.  I am Satan.  I am your tour guide to hell.”  No.  So subtle and so shrewd.  So much more than we envision.
We can still hear him mock as he mentions:  “Did God really say … this about marriage or that about money?”  The devil does not care about us when he claims, “God wants you to be happy.  I will help you with that.”  He wants us to waver when it comes to God’s Word.  “Is God truthful?”  But we have it in black and white to look at and learn from—right and wrong.  We can inquire:  “Is this something that God prevents or that pleases God?”
And that is where Eve started.  “God did say”  (Ge 3:3).  She was correct.  “Hand off that one.  That one.  God doesn’t want us to die  (Ge 3:2)”  But the conversation became costly.
That is when Satan snapped back.  He is emphatic:  “You will not surely die”  (Ge 3:4).  “Liar.  God is a liar.”  Imagine that—the “father of lies” calling the Father of love a fraud and a fake.  The devil lives up to his name—“slanderer,” one who gives another a bad reputation.  “Can God be trusted?  Really?”  “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”  (Ge 3:5).  “God is stingy and selfish, jealous and envious, holding back on you, not wanting you to be equal to him.”  (We noticed that there was no indication of that whatsoever in the Garden.)
It continues to this day.  The falsehood is still there:  “God and his will are not good.  He is keeping something from you like a miser with a closed fist, refusing to hand out any money.”  And we buy into it.
Eve did.  Satan’s poison proved deadly.  Eve was deceived  (2 Co 11:3).  She chose to believe the lie of the devil—that God is not loving.  And so she saw the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil differently—“that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom”  (Ge 3:6).  Not what God intended at all.  And she ate.  And there Adam stood in awful and absolute silence.  Not one word.  Not one thing.  He joined his wife in her unbelief—chomping and chewing, his mouth full of the forbidden fruit in defiance and disobedience.
Satan was half right.  “Then the eyes of both of them were opened”  (Ge 3:7).  But it turned out to be too good to be true like the pots and pans of a late-night infomercial.  They didn’t die on the spot.  But there was no longer a bond with God.  That is being alive.  It was broken.  That is being dead.  And as the apostle Paul also explained.  Sin brought with it its ugly companion of death  (Ro 5:12).  Death reigns and rules  (Ro 5:17).  One day they would die  (Ge 5:5).  Those two now knew from experience that good was gone and evil was evident.  It showed in their hastily stitched fig leaf clothes.  There was shame where before there was none  (cf. Ge 2:25).
The LORD God did not squash them.  He saved them out of intense grace.  That is who he is and what he does.  As they cowered, God came.  He cursed the snake which the devil had commandeered for his dirty deed  (Ge 3:14).  The sliding along the ground would lead to dining on dust and call to mind Satan’s ultimate loss.
And that is exactly what the LORD God promised—the devil’s downfall and the Savior success.  It wouldn’t be Eve.  It wouldn’t be Adam.  “I will”  (Ge 3:15).  “I will do it.”
 “I will put enmity between you and the woman”  (Ge 3:15).  There was a sick friendship between Eve and the devil.  That would not continue.  There would be hatred and hostility.  The way it should be.
 “I will put enmity … between your offspring and hers”  (Ge 3:15).  That would carry over to those who follow Satan with a lack of faith and those who follow Eve with a heart of faith.
 “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”  (Ge 3:15).  But there would be one.  The One.  A Serpent-crusher.  A snake’s head has no chance at the bottom and back end of a cowboy boot—the skull squashed and body still.  But there was the Heel-biter.  Satan would attack.  We saw that in the wilderness.  For 40 days and 40 nights the devil tried to rob the world of its Redeemer  (Mt 4:1-11).  But Jesus never sinned.  Not once  (He 4:15).  He lived perfectly in our place.  He willingly credits it to our account.
But the final assault came at the cross.  The battle cost Jesus his life.  But that is where Jesus beat Satan.  So Jesus could cry:  “It is finished”  (Jn 19:30).  [Slide 29]  The devil is destroyed  (1 Jn 3:8).  Death is defeated.  That was Jesus’ job.  That was Jesus’ joy  (He 12:2).  The empty grave makes that plain.  That is really the goal of Lent.  Not Good Friday.  But Easter Sunday.  That is where we want to end up.  Jesus died.  But Jesus lives.  We die.  We live.
There is life in the Garden seen in the LORD God’s intense grace for Adam and Eve.  And for us.
With March here we have the reality of a lion and a lamb.  There could be snow or sleet still around the corner.  There also could be heat and even humidity.  (60s today?!)  That doesn’t grow my need to garden.  We would assume that there is life in a garden.  There is in Eden.  There is life seen in the LORD God’s immense goodness.  That is the way he deals with us in life.  There is the LORD God’s intense grace.  He did what we could not out of love for us.  He sent Jesus to conquer the devil.  He did.  It is true.  Amen.

The God of peace be with you all  (Ro 15:33).  Amen.


March 5, 2017