The Story is About God’s Love

Read Genesis 3:8-24

I think that even by the time we reach the end of the third chapter of Genesis, we have already been taken on a roller coaster of emotions. Initially, we are in complete awe of how God created EVERYTHING in this humongous universe, from the smallest ant abdomen to the largest galaxies out there. Then, we share Adam and Eve’s extreme joy when they are united by God to “worship and obey” Him together. The intimacy they experience with God is something we Christians today can only dream of. And then (Darth Vader music)…something we now call “The Fall” occurs. Adam and Eve, so lovingly created by God to live in such a perfect environment (It’s the Garden of Eden for crying out loud. It’s the absolutely perfect place for humans to live and flourish), enjoying such deep intimacy with God – BOOM! They sin. Adam and Eve have practically – no, they do have – everything they could ever possibly want; yet, they still choose to disobey God and they sever humankind’s once-whole relationship with God.

Wow. My reaction to this story is sometimes anger. I look at all that Adam and Eve had, all that God had given to them, and I am overwhelmingly confused, mad, and shocked at how our ancestors could have given up all that good stuff just so they could eat a little fruit off the only tree that God commanded them not to eat off of. One tree, that’s all that God ever told them to stay away from. Everything else, go right on ahead. But no, do not eat from that tree. Yet, what do Adam and Eve do? Eat from that one tree God tells them not to eat from. And the argument could be made the serpent did tempt Eve to eat from the tree initially, who gave it to Adam to eat, who blah blah blah. The point is Adam and Eve chose to consciously disobey God and reject everything that He had provided for them.

Yet, each time I continue to think more about the situation and my own life, I begin to see times in my own life where I have sinned and consciously rebelled against God, at times, even sinning deliberately against God even when I know, not too deep down, that I should not be doing what I am doing…while I’m sinning against God. And when I’m reminded of those times, I realize that I have absolutely no right to be mad at Adam and Eve for what they did because, frankly, who am I to judge them, a fellow sinner? And, at this, I begin to understand the deep sadness and fear that must have gripped their hearts the moment they bit into the forbidden fruit. In fact, Adam and Eve actually physically try to hide from God when they “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden.”
I remember going on a vacation to Oregon the summer after Kindergarten. We stayed at a nice hotel/apartment called Boulders on the River. It was a really nice place and, best of all (even though I didn’t even play volleyball at the age of 6), there was a sand volleyball court behind the place we were staying, in the middle of a big grass field. One day, my two sisters and I went out to that sand court to play with the sand and probably try to make sand castles or something. We also decided that it was a good idea to bring my mom’s umbrella/parasol outside because we thought it would be a good idea to all try to hide underneath it while playing with the sand. I also remember distinctly my mom and dad both telling us: “make sure you don’t break it.” That’s the one command they gave us. Of course, we reassured them that we wouldn’t and hurried outside to play. Luckily for us, there happened to be a bunch of people playing volleyball on the sand court that day and, lo and behold, the ball smashed into my mom’s umbrella that we were hiding underneath and, yeah, broke it. I don’t remember what exactly went through my mind the instant I realized what had happened, but I can imagine it was similar to how Adam and Eve felt when they too broke the single command given to them: shock, fear, anxiety. After we realized the state of the umbrella, my sisters and I quietly crept back into the house, tried to fix up the umbrella as best as we could, put it away, and hid from my parents. I can imagine how terrible I must have felt and how the worry tore at my heart that afternoon. After all, it was the one thing my parents told us not to do, and we did exactly that. We could have just as easily played somewhere else, but we consciously chose to stay where we were, in a very likely position for a ball to come in and break my mom’s umbrella. Later that afternoon, I remember my dad calling out to the three of us, similar to how God called out to Adam and Eve in the garden, asking us where we were. We came out from hiding in our rooms and when my dad asked about the umbrella, there was absolutely no hiding the truth.

Now back to Adam and Eve. At this point in their story, God has just confronted them about their sin, asking them, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Not that God needs their answer to know the truth. But our God is also a just God whose absolute abhorrence of sin demands payment for sin. And thus, Adam and Eve are given difficulty working the ground and pain in childbirth respectively as well as banished from the Garden of Eden and, more importantly, God’s presence.
I think that it’s important to note that, despite our sins and the extreme grief that it causes God, just as my father was probably grieved (on a smaller scale) that we couldn’t come to him and admit our faults, God still loves us. No matter what we do to disrupt God’s original intent, He still has our best interests in mind. I want to highlight the last part of today’s passage: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever–’ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.”

I think both of these gestures, clothing Adam and Eve, and driving them out of the Garden of Eden are significant in showing God’s desire and love for us. In fact, the first thing God does after he declares his punishment on humans is to clothe them. This is still a very intimate action; it brings to my mind the image of a mother lovingly dressing her young child for his/her first day of school. It also shows that God, even right after the first human sin, still loves us! And that is way cool. Also, regarding how driving humans from the garden is reflective of love, here is a commentary from my ESV Bible regarding verses 22-24:
“The couple is expelled from the garden. God begins a sentence in v. 22 and breaks it off without finishing it – for the man to live forever (in his sinful condition) is an unbearable thought, and God must waste no time in preventing it (‘therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden’).”

Now what does all this mean for us today though? I think that we’ve established that we are in no position to judge Adam and Eve for their downfall, but I do not believe that is the true purpose of this passage or of Genesis as a whole. In fact, I believe that the story is primarily about God’s love despite our sin and not simply about our sin itself. For even amidst our sin and the mandatory consequences for sin, God’s love shines through and is the climax and finale of the story of our lives.
So how have you, even with all the sin in your life, been able to see God’s love shown by you, through you, or to you? Really reflect on this, because I know from firsthand experience that it is extraordinarily easy to get distracted from what is the true story of all of creation: that is, God’s love.