I wrote this sermon during my final semester of seminary (Fall 2017) while taking my final course (my third Hebrew)-- Hebrew exegesis: Genesis. It's an attempt at a narrative style sermon (at least the first part) that incorporates exegetical insights while retelling the story.
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Once, there was nothing.
Once, there was nothing.
The earth was formless and void; welter and waste.
Dark.
Until God spoke, bringing order from chaos, light into darkness, and where once there was nothing God made everything.
Through the Word all things came into being and apart from the Word nothing was.
God spoke into being the skies and the seas, the flora and the fauna, the wild animals and the work animals.
God breathed God’s very breath into the dust. Into the adamah God ruached … then, breathed the human, adam. From the fertility of humus, a human emerged.
God created the humans in God’s own image; male and female God created them.
From the side of a sleeping adam God drew forth another. As the man was brought forth from dust, the woman was brought forth from man.
“Bone of my bones! Flesh of my flesh!” The man rejoiced over the woman.
Later, Adam would name her Eve, mother of the living.
God blessed them; God commanded them: be fruitful and multiply.
God placed them in the Garden to care for it. The humans were of the earth, so the earth they should tend.
“Eat not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” God told them, “for surely, you shall die.”
Eat it not, for surely you shall die.
----------
In the garden they were innocent, the man and the woman. Like little children they were naked, but unashamed. In the garden that God had made for them, all things were good. But one may not remain a child forever. So came a day that the woman and man made a choice, a choice for which, surely, they would die.
---------
A snake came and talked to the woman. The man was with her, but it was to the woman that it spoke.
“Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
The snake was clever to sow the first seeds of doubt by twisting the words of God. Was God’s command good and reasonable?
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard; but not the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard. God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’”
The woman knew the rule.
The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.”
With so little persuasion, the woman took and ate. She shared the fruit with the man, and he ate with no persuasion at all.
Why is it that when we already have perfection we desire something better? The humans had everything they needed yet, at their first chance for more they grasped greedily.
They touched, plucked, ate the fruit… and, yet, they did not die.
Indeed, their eyes were opened, and they came to know good and evil just as the serpent had promised. The serpent spoke truly. But the truth held a twisted poison.
God had been protecting the humans like little children from the knowledge of good and evil. Now the humans were like jaded adults, innocence faded and replaced by discord and distrust.
The innocence of the garden was shattered. The humans were no longer naked and unashamed. They were embarrassed by their new knowledge and hid themselves from each other with leaves. They were embarrassed by what they had done and hid from God deep in the garden.
Indeed, their eyes were opened to good and evil, and the woman and man knew that by disobeying God they had chosen wrong. And thus sin came into the world.
The man and woman’s relationship was broken. And thus sin came into the world.
They were separated from God. And thus sin came into the world.
That evening, walking through the garden, God asked the humans if they had eaten of the tree. The man blamed the woman, and the woman blamed the snake.
First God addressed the snake, the creature in rebellion.
“Because you have done this, you are cursed.
On your belly you will crawl
and dust you will eat all the days of your life.”
This rebellious, legless snake was damned to writhe in the dust. The very dust from which God brings forth humans in goodness is to torment the snake all it’s days.
God then described the relationship between the woman and the snake as one of animosity, noting:
her offspring will attack your head,
and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”
The snake had tempted the humans into sin. By God’s description, humans and temptation will forever be tangled together thrashing and raking at one another. What is it that entices us to our rebellions? What tangles us as a snake biting at our heels?
After finishing with the snake, God turned to the humans...and, still, though they had eaten of the fruit, they did not die.
God addressed the woman, the creature God had made very good. The creature God had protected from evil. God explained to her what the logical consequences of her actions are.
With an expulsion from the garden her toil is increased, increased greatly.
When she bears children, there will be pain.
She and her husband will want to dominate one another; there will be strife.
Yet, God had grace on the woman, she did not die.
Then God addressed the man, the creature God had made very good. The creature God had protected from evil. God explained to him what the logical consequences of his actions are.
With an expulsion from the garden his toil is increased, increased greatly.
Rather than eating easily of the many good fruits of the garden the man would need to toil in cultivating the soil.
There will be weeds to pluck, there will be pain.
This will continue his whole life, God proclaimed
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return.
Yet, God had grace on the man; he did not die.
Even as God explained these consequences, he extended grace, for surely not even our sins will separate us from the love of God. God also loving replaced the hasty leaf garments with the skins of animals, a sign of God’s faithfulness.
Then the Lord God expelled the humans from the garden to cultivate the ground from which they had been taken. To labor and toil, but also to be fruitful and multiply. Though the humans suffered consequences for their actions, God did not remove God’s own blessing from them.
Outside the garden God placed angelic sentries, so that the humans could not return. They would be unable to grasp toward the tree of life in hopes of immortality. They would also be unable to return to their childlike, easy way of life. For with adulthood comes pain and toil and the knowledge that surely, you will die.
---------
Though God had told the humans eating the fruit would result in death, they did not die.
The snake told the humans that by eating the fruit their eyes would be opened, and they were.
Did God lie and the rebellious snake tell the truth?
The moment the man and the woman ate they did not die a physical death, but a spiritual one. Until then they had lived in righteousness in a perfect world of God’s construction. As soon as they grasped for something more, something they thought was was better, their innocence died. Suddenly, they knew of nakedness, mortality, pain and toil. Their oneness with God was shattered and replaced by sin.
We too, like the man and the woman, often grasp for something more. We reject God’s plans for us, we reject God’s desires for us, because we think WE CAN DO BETTER. Rather than following in God’s ways, we pridefully choose our own. We have each eaten the fruit a thousand times over. The man and woman were the first to choose sin, but they were not the last.
However, there was One who did die for the sins of the man and woman... and for all of ours: Christ Jesus through whom all are reconciled from sin and death to grace and new life. Truly, Jesus died for the sins of one and the sins of many as a holy sacrifice, through his life, death, and resurrection. Just as sin has reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Unlike the first humans Jesus was obedient to God’s plan. Though Jesus begged in anguish in another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, that this cup, this death, might be spared him, Jesus followed God’s plan--not his own.
Though Jesus was of God’s own nature he did not grasp beyond himself.
Philippians 2:6-11
who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.
8 He humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to the point of death
—even death on a cross!
9 As a result God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow
—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—
11 and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
So let us then in word and deed confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Let our knees bow at the glory of His name. Let us remember the Good News, first proclaimed in Genesis 3, that our God is a God of grace. That rather than dying for our sins we might be saved into glory and righteousness.
That though we don’t escape the logical consequences of our sin, that our gift is free life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Pray:
Oh God let us be worthy of this grace...
____________________
Once, there was nothing.
Once, there was nothing.
The earth was formless and void; welter and waste.
Dark.
Until God spoke, bringing order from chaos, light into darkness, and where once there was nothing God made everything.
Through the Word all things came into being and apart from the Word nothing was.
God spoke into being the skies and the seas, the flora and the fauna, the wild animals and the work animals.
God breathed God’s very breath into the dust. Into the adamah God ruached … then, breathed the human, adam. From the fertility of humus, a human emerged.
God created the humans in God’s own image; male and female God created them.
From the side of a sleeping adam God drew forth another. As the man was brought forth from dust, the woman was brought forth from man.
“Bone of my bones! Flesh of my flesh!” The man rejoiced over the woman.
Later, Adam would name her Eve, mother of the living.
God blessed them; God commanded them: be fruitful and multiply.
God placed them in the Garden to care for it. The humans were of the earth, so the earth they should tend.
“Eat not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” God told them, “for surely, you shall die.”
Eat it not, for surely you shall die.
----------
In the garden they were innocent, the man and the woman. Like little children they were naked, but unashamed. In the garden that God had made for them, all things were good. But one may not remain a child forever. So came a day that the woman and man made a choice, a choice for which, surely, they would die.
---------
A snake came and talked to the woman. The man was with her, but it was to the woman that it spoke.
“Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
The snake was clever to sow the first seeds of doubt by twisting the words of God. Was God’s command good and reasonable?
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard; but not the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard. God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’”
The woman knew the rule.
The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil.”
With so little persuasion, the woman took and ate. She shared the fruit with the man, and he ate with no persuasion at all.
Why is it that when we already have perfection we desire something better? The humans had everything they needed yet, at their first chance for more they grasped greedily.
They touched, plucked, ate the fruit… and, yet, they did not die.
Indeed, their eyes were opened, and they came to know good and evil just as the serpent had promised. The serpent spoke truly. But the truth held a twisted poison.
God had been protecting the humans like little children from the knowledge of good and evil. Now the humans were like jaded adults, innocence faded and replaced by discord and distrust.
The innocence of the garden was shattered. The humans were no longer naked and unashamed. They were embarrassed by their new knowledge and hid themselves from each other with leaves. They were embarrassed by what they had done and hid from God deep in the garden.
Indeed, their eyes were opened to good and evil, and the woman and man knew that by disobeying God they had chosen wrong. And thus sin came into the world.
The man and woman’s relationship was broken. And thus sin came into the world.
They were separated from God. And thus sin came into the world.
That evening, walking through the garden, God asked the humans if they had eaten of the tree. The man blamed the woman, and the woman blamed the snake.
First God addressed the snake, the creature in rebellion.
“Because you have done this, you are cursed.
On your belly you will crawl
and dust you will eat all the days of your life.”
This rebellious, legless snake was damned to writhe in the dust. The very dust from which God brings forth humans in goodness is to torment the snake all it’s days.
God then described the relationship between the woman and the snake as one of animosity, noting:
her offspring will attack your head,
and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”
The snake had tempted the humans into sin. By God’s description, humans and temptation will forever be tangled together thrashing and raking at one another. What is it that entices us to our rebellions? What tangles us as a snake biting at our heels?
After finishing with the snake, God turned to the humans...and, still, though they had eaten of the fruit, they did not die.
God addressed the woman, the creature God had made very good. The creature God had protected from evil. God explained to her what the logical consequences of her actions are.
With an expulsion from the garden her toil is increased, increased greatly.
When she bears children, there will be pain.
She and her husband will want to dominate one another; there will be strife.
Yet, God had grace on the woman, she did not die.
Then God addressed the man, the creature God had made very good. The creature God had protected from evil. God explained to him what the logical consequences of his actions are.
With an expulsion from the garden his toil is increased, increased greatly.
Rather than eating easily of the many good fruits of the garden the man would need to toil in cultivating the soil.
There will be weeds to pluck, there will be pain.
This will continue his whole life, God proclaimed
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return.
Yet, God had grace on the man; he did not die.
Even as God explained these consequences, he extended grace, for surely not even our sins will separate us from the love of God. God also loving replaced the hasty leaf garments with the skins of animals, a sign of God’s faithfulness.
Then the Lord God expelled the humans from the garden to cultivate the ground from which they had been taken. To labor and toil, but also to be fruitful and multiply. Though the humans suffered consequences for their actions, God did not remove God’s own blessing from them.
Outside the garden God placed angelic sentries, so that the humans could not return. They would be unable to grasp toward the tree of life in hopes of immortality. They would also be unable to return to their childlike, easy way of life. For with adulthood comes pain and toil and the knowledge that surely, you will die.
---------
Though God had told the humans eating the fruit would result in death, they did not die.
The snake told the humans that by eating the fruit their eyes would be opened, and they were.
Did God lie and the rebellious snake tell the truth?
The moment the man and the woman ate they did not die a physical death, but a spiritual one. Until then they had lived in righteousness in a perfect world of God’s construction. As soon as they grasped for something more, something they thought was was better, their innocence died. Suddenly, they knew of nakedness, mortality, pain and toil. Their oneness with God was shattered and replaced by sin.
We too, like the man and the woman, often grasp for something more. We reject God’s plans for us, we reject God’s desires for us, because we think WE CAN DO BETTER. Rather than following in God’s ways, we pridefully choose our own. We have each eaten the fruit a thousand times over. The man and woman were the first to choose sin, but they were not the last.
However, there was One who did die for the sins of the man and woman... and for all of ours: Christ Jesus through whom all are reconciled from sin and death to grace and new life. Truly, Jesus died for the sins of one and the sins of many as a holy sacrifice, through his life, death, and resurrection. Just as sin has reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Unlike the first humans Jesus was obedient to God’s plan. Though Jesus begged in anguish in another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, that this cup, this death, might be spared him, Jesus followed God’s plan--not his own.
Though Jesus was of God’s own nature he did not grasp beyond himself.
Philippians 2:6-11
who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.
8 He humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to the point of death
—even death on a cross!
9 As a result God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow
—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—
11 and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
So let us then in word and deed confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Let our knees bow at the glory of His name. Let us remember the Good News, first proclaimed in Genesis 3, that our God is a God of grace. That rather than dying for our sins we might be saved into glory and righteousness.
That though we don’t escape the logical consequences of our sin, that our gift is free life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Pray:
Oh God let us be worthy of this grace...
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