(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 06/25/06) 

INTRODUCTION:

The Lutheran is the magazine of another Lutheran church body, similar to what Forward in Christ is for our church.  In June of 1988, in its “Since You Asked” department, The Lutheran provided these responses.

Question: Is it now considered naive or even heresy for Lutherans to believe that Adam and Eve were real people?

Answer: For centuries the church believed in the actual existence of Adam and Eve. Recent scholarship suggests that the significance of the Adam and Eve stories is not their literal truth or lack of it but the theological points they make about the creation of humankind in God's image.

If someone believes Adam and Eve were historic people, and this view is helpful to their Christian life, it is not good ministry to rip such a viewpoint from them. Nor should the faith of those who understand these stories in a symbolic way be questioned.

It’s a sad day when Lutherans (or anyone, for that matter) put Adam and Eve into the category of mythical or legendary figures, as if Bible story equals fable.  Adam and Eve were real human beings whom God made in his own image approximately six to seven thousand years ago.  When we read about their fall into sin, we’re reading about the event that has had more impact on the human race than anything else.  The familiar, factual events of man’s fall into sin are like watching a torpedo rip into the broad side of a ship – damage, destruction, death.

But if you happened to read the Meditations this past Monday, the devotion was based on a three-word passage from 1 John – God is love.  For all the horrible consequences of sin that people have experienced over the sixty centuries since this happened, the newspaper headline would still read like this:

God’s Love Revealed In Eden Tragedy

Let’s hear what the full article has to tell us.

It’s easy for me to see a young boy or girl, balled up in a corner of a room behind a dresser, not wanting to be found by mom or dad because the pieces of the broken vase would have the young child’s fingerprints on them.  Can’t you see that young child, as the parent finds it and says, “Come here,” sitting in the corner, silently, repeatedly shaking its head.  [Nope, don’t want to.]  You probably don’t have to picture it because at some point it was you.

“Adam, where are you?” [silent head shaking]

They made coverings for themselves, because the sexuality issues between them were no longer pure, holy, loving and selfless.  Guilt.  The sound of the Lord led to scurrying to find a place to hide.  Guilt.  The questions from God led to half-truths and evasive actions – not a word about scurrying to hide or being afraid or eating fruit.  “I could hardly appear before you naked, Lord!”  Guilt.  “This is the one for me, Lord.  She’s bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” changed to, “What’d you give her to me for, Lord!”  Blaming God.  Blaming someone else.  Guilt.  A mountain of guilt and the small shovel wasn’t getting rid of any of it.

You’ve tried the “balled up in a corner, sulking, nervous, hiding behind a dresser” way of dealing with sin.   Does it work well?  Half-truths and excuses that God can see right through – do they fill you with peace and send you on your way rejoicing?  Blaming others – does that build up love and truth and foster good will with the people God has placed around you?  Blaming God – Does that have a chance to remove or resolve guilt, or simply increase it?

A world that had been so very good was teeming with guilt, and Adam and Eve were swimming in it, trying to cope with it, but drowning in it.  What was the Lord going to do once they showed themselves?  “There you are!  Now I’m gonna…”  No, God was the loving Father who found his children hiding in the bedroom, who sought them out in order to say, “Tell me what happened because I’ve come to fix it.”  God’s Love revealed in the Eden tragedy is a seeking love.  As much as it goes against what our brains or our hearts or our consciences tell us, when we sin, God wants us to run to him, not away from him, because he is love.

God seeks us out, inviting us to make confession of our sin because he has the absolution to deliver – he is love.  He seeks us out, knowing everything that’s buried in the mountain of guilt that towers before us, inviting us to admit it, because he remits it (sends it away).  He is love.  And his love for you is a gracious love because when it comes to fixing sin and reclaiming sinners, it’s all God, from start to finish.

The first word (in the original sentence) in the extremely important Genesis 3:15 passage is the direct object, the word 'enmity'.  Eve, you can’t trust and obey the devil.  It’ll kill you.  Satan, you’re probably thinking you’ve got her on your side. Wrong.  I’m taking care of that.  Enmity, hostility I am putting between you and her.  She’s friends with me, not with you, a child of mine, not a child of yours.  She’s trusting in me again, not in you.  Same will be true of her descendants who trust me.  They’ll always be at odds with people who follow you, Satan.  How will I pull this off?

My, what a picture!  Satan, instead of poisoning and killing all people with your lies, you’re going to sink your poisonous teeth into the heel of one descendant of Eve.  On a cross for six hours, it’s going to look like you’ve got him.  He will twist and writhe in inhumane torture and agony, his appearance disfigured beyond that of any man, and his form marred beyond human likeness (Isaiah 52).  He will languish, comfortless, in God-forsakenness, loaded up with the guilt of humanity.  My Son, whom I love more than anyone can ever comprehend, I will hand over to hell and death.  Your teeth will tie into his heel, Satan, as if you’re never going to let go.

But at the end of those six hours, when he looks as if he’s lost, your claims on people’s souls and your accusations against them for their sins will die when he drives his heel through your head and crushes your skull and cries out, “It is finished.” 

God’s love for you is not mere talk.  God’s love revealed in Eden’s tragedy is an active love, a love that destroyed and then raised from the dead his only Son, to remove your guilt forever and to shut Satan’s blasphemous, deceptive, lying mouth for good.

Unlike our hiding and excusing and blaming, God’s way of resolving guilt worked.  In the real lives of Adam and Eve, God’s love in Christ sought out sinners, reconciled rebels and destroyed the devil.  His love in Christ has done the same for you.  The events in Eden tell you so.  God’s love for you is unconditional, unfathomable and unending.  Don’t let anyone or anything ever tell you otherwise.

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