Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

            Text: Genesis 3:8-15

 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus:

 If anyone ever had reason to give up on us and put us aside – in effect saying, “Good riddance” – it was God! For the man and the woman He created in holiness and righteousness, whom He blessed by making them the crown of His creation, turned their backs on Him. They doubted His Word and they disobeyed His command. In their pride, Adam and Eve rebelled against God. So, He would have been perfectly justified in saying, “I’m through with you. Get out of my sight. I never want to see you again.” Yes, God could have said that. And He could say it again this morning to all of us who disregard and go against His Law everyday. But thank God today – He didn’t say this to Adam and Eve in the garden, and He doesn’t say this to us. God didn’t give up on those first sinners, and He doesn’t give up on us today. The way God dealt with our first parents is still the way He deals with all sinners. He comes after them. He pursues them. God takes the first step – and every step that follows. He doesn’t wait for us to come around or come to our senses – because in our sinfulness, we’re not capable of finding our way. So, our God comes to us. And this is what the text for this morning shows us – God taking the initiative, the first step in order to confront us with our sins and to promise us a way back to Him.

What Adam and Eve had done in the garden wasn’t some sort of innocent little thing. When they ate the forbidden fruit, it was a sign of their unbelief. It was pride, the desire to be like God. It was disobedience, the refusal to obey God’s command. It was rebellion, the insistence on going their own way. It was human beings too busy playing God – to listen to God. It was sin! And in the text for this morning, the time came for Adam and Eve to stand trial before God. He came to call them into account. God came to the garden and called Adam, saying – “Where are you?” It was as if God were saying, “Do you think I don’t see you, that I don’t know what you have done?” But instead of answering, Adam and Eve tried to hide from God. They were afraid. They knew that they had disobeyed, had sinned, and were guilty. Satan had promised them that they would be just like God. They had been looking for knowledge – and now they knew all about sin and evil first-hand. Their conscience was bothered. It found them guilty – and made them afraid.

 But Adam and Eve weren’t yet ready to acknowledge and confess their sin – and take responsibility for their actions. And this is the nature of sin – it causes us to deny our wrongdoing. We try to run away and hide. But where? There really isn’t a good hiding-place from God. Moses told the people of Israel – “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.” And God Himself declares – “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him…Do not I fill heaven and earth?” Deep down inside we know this – and as a result we can find no peace by trying to deny our sins.

 And Adam was the first to discover that he couldn’t hide from God. God found him – but still Adam wouldn’t face up to his sin. Instead, he made excuses – “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And yet, really! What kind of an excuse was that? Adam had heard God’s voice in the garden before, and there had been nothing to be afraid of. Why should it be any different now? But this again is the nature of sin. It causes us to come up with the most ridiculous excuses.

 But God cut right through it all, all of the garbage and all of the excuses, when He asked – “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” And it is here that we’re getting to the heart of the problem. And yet, even then, Adam wouldn’t confess. Instead, this time, he did what has been so typical of all of us since that time – he tried to place the blame of somebody else. “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” “It’s all her fault, Lord, so why don’t you talk to her. In fact, if you want to be honest about it, it’s really your fault, Lord. If you hadn’t put her here with me in the first place, nothing like this would have happened.” And would you believe that Eve came up with the same kind of excuse – “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

 Here we see sin at its worst, like it really is. We don’t want to confess. We like to blame others for our wrongdoing, it’s easier that way. And we do it all the time. How many times haven’t we heard others use or we ourselves use excuses like these – “It’s not my fault. It’s the world in which we live. Everyone else is doing it. Or this person or that person made me do it.” We echo the excuses of Adam and Eve constantly. We insist on being innocent at al costs, even if we have to blame others or God Himself for our failings and shortcomings.

 So, where does this leave us? It leaves us, just as it left Adam and Eve, separated from God. We’ve turned against Him and have become His enemies. We have lost all self-respect and feelings of self-worth. Not only have we broken our relationship with God, we’ve also turned against one another. All of life becomes useless and frustrating, a life which finally ends in death. It’s the apostle Paul who wrote – “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”

 Don’t you see, as God confronts us this morning, that to try and hide, to look for excuses, or to blame others or even God Himself, all of this won’t solve our problem, it won’t enable us to get rid of our sins? The apostle John wrote – “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” But God keeps taking the initiative. He finds us in the mess we’ve made for ourselves, and confronts us with our sins. We can never escape from God, He finds us – and passes judgment on us. Though God judges and must judge us, that isn’t His only reason for confronting us. He comes not only in judgment to condemn – but also in mercy to give us His grace and love. And this is something that’s so hard for us to understand. Adam would never have guessed that it was love that compelled God to come to Him. What if God had remained silent, or refused to come? What if God had refused to have anything to do with any of us ever again? However, God came to call Adam and Eve to account and to speak His judgment – because His judgment was necessary if they were to receive the help the really needed. And we also must know our desperate, our lost condition before we can receive the help we need. For how could we get excited about our salvation, if we didn’t first know that we were destined for hell? How could we be interested in reconciliation with God is we didn’t know about our separation from Him? We have to e crushed by our sinfulness to such a point where we confess – “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Then, and then only, can God reach out and embrace us with His love. Only then are we prepared to receive the gift of His love.

 And just look at what happened! God gave Adam and Eve the first promise of a Savior. He said to the serpent – “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” But there was going to be a war. On one side, Satan and his followers – on the other side, the woman and all her descendants. Ever since that time, Satan has done everything possible to destroy God’s creation. And all of us would have gone down to defeat – if it hadn’t been for God keeping His promise and sending His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to be our Savior – to do battle and win the victory for us.

 Only God could help us – and He did! But it wasn’t an easy victory. In the battle, He would suffer. Christ was nailed to the cross. And upon it, He died. For a moment at least, it looked lie Satan had won. But it only seemed that way. In reality, the serpent’s head had been crushed – he had been defeated. For our Savior came forth triumphantly from the grave, proclaiming His victory. And His victory is also now our victory. Our sins have been paid for – our guilt removed. Satan no longer has any power over us. The apostle John writes – “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” And the writer to the Hebrews proclaims – “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil.” For Adam and Eve brought death. But Jesus Christ brings life.

 Now the gates of paradise, which were closed on our first parents, have been reopened – and we, through faith in our Redeemer, are reconciled to God. This is our comfort.  This is our hope. For, you see, whether we want to admit it or not, our problem is this – what are we going to do about sin? We can’t hide it. We can’t make excuses for it. And we can’t blame others for it. Confession and repentance are the answer. For in this way, the power of God’s forgiving love can heal us and make us clean.

 God comes to us through the Word that’s proclaimed to us. He is asking – “What are you going to do about your sin?” What greater message can there be than that we don’t have to do anything because Christ has already done everything for us, that we don’t have to make peace with God because He has already made peace with us! God has come to us, just as He came to Adam and Eve. He comes again today, offering us forgiveness, peace, and life. Therefore, as God comes to us, asking, “where are you?” – may we respond, “Here am I, Lord. In the blood of the Lamb, here I am!” Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen. 



Authored by Reverend Carl Trosien.