A Taste of Paradise
What do you consider paradise? Is it playing in the snowy wintery weather or basking in the sun on the tropical beaches of Puerto Vallarta? True paradise is the LORD God and his love for you in Jesus Christ. As learn in Genesis 3:1-15, a Taste of Paradise is ours to enjoy right now. February 10, 2008.
Last week’s record-breaking blizzard tested our rugged resolve to endure the long, cold season and disrupted our Ash Wednesday with across-the-board cancellations. Ironically, on that day I noticed Milwaukee Magazine’s cover story for the February issue that offered the helpful title, “Beat the Winter Blues.” Author Leah Dobkin, as if she needed to remind us, wrote about our Wisconsin winters, “Each morning brings bone-chilling cold, mounds of dirty snow, hidden ice patches waiting in ambush, and meager daylight that seems to end as soon as it’s begun … When the wind chills dip to 40 degrees below zero, we trudge on, counting ourselves lucky if our nostrils don’t permanently freeze together” (February 2008, p. 57). Definitely not a place we’d call paradise.
Like the Garden of Eden. The Bible tells us that after “the heavens and the earth were completed in their vast array … the Lord God … planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food … a river watering the garden flowed from Eden” (Genesis 2:1,8-10). Now that’s paradise. No backaches from shoveling. No ice on the road or in the roof. No slipping on the sidewalk. So it’s hard to believe that Adam and Eve didn’t consider the Garden of Eden paradise at all, but prison – like we sometimes consider winter in Wisconsin. Instead of thanking the LordGod for creating a luxury home for them they cursed him for not making it better, for holding out on them. With the help of the devil they long for their dream paradise waiting just beyond their reach and it would be theirs if only …
Do you think I’m being unfair to our first parents? If so, look carefully at their behavior, and listen closely to their dialogue with the devil. For Adam and Eve paradise wasn’t what everything had but something they didn’t. Just a taste is all they needed. Then they’d be happy. These are our parents indeed.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” This snake was possessed by the devil, a real spirit being who had been created by God as a good angel and then chose to rebel against God. Paradise for the devil wasn’t serving God in heaven but ruling his own evil kingdom in hell. He wanted others to taste that “paradise,” so he spun a delightfully tantalizing message, something like this: “God makes himself sound so good but he’s not good. Why would a good God prohibit you from eating the scrumptious fruit of a beautiful tree? God is supposed to give you good things, not make your life miserable with unreasonable boundaries!”
“God did say …” Eve replied to the snake. She knew the command God had given. “’You must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“It’s a trick,” the deceiver explained. “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” How dare God deprive Adam and Eve of luxuries he himself enjoyed. A Taste of Paradise was right there, waiting for them to enjoy just like God. So Adam and Eve took the fruit, eagerly anticipating the paradise that would be theirs. But what they chewed and then swallowed was not paradise at all, but poison.
What is your fruit, son of Adam? Where is your paradise, daughter of Eve? What do you think you must have? Where do you think you must be? … that God has asked you to avoid? Whatever and wherever it is, let me assure you of this: the devil knows it. Armed with that knowledge, he tricks you just like he tricked Adam and Eve. I read these verses in Genesis and you heard them today, and we both know it’s easy for us feel a bit smug and really wonder how Adam and Eve fell for such obvious trickery; all the while we are petting a snake as Satan coils himself around us.
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Adam and Eve weren’t created with the capacity to bear shame, and neither were we. Their only defense was to cover it up, but the fig leaves did little when the Lord God came calling so they tried to hide among the trees. And when that didn’t work they tried to blame each other and even God. Here was death. The physical death would come, just as God said it would, but another death had already poisoned them. Spiritual death. Separation from God. In their sin, they wanted to be as far away from him as possible, to hide from him and blame him and shut him out of their lives. In his mercy, the Lord God, however, wanted to be closer to them than ever. He loved them and would not let them go. He loves you, sinner, and will not let you go. Take a look at the title that the Bible gives to God in his interaction with Adam and Eve after they disobeyed. “The Lord God.” The Bible adds the name, “Lord,” with all capital letters, reminding us that this is the Jehovah God, the Yaweh God whose name means, “I am.” He is not influenced by anything other than his love for sinners. He is constant, always keeping his promises, faithful to his Word, there for Adam and Eve and you and all sinners. There to save, to forgive, to deliver, to love.
After Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord God came to them and called out to them, “Where are you?” With anxious and seeking love, the Lord God longs to restore sinners to harmony with him, opening his arms wide for us to come near and say, “We’re so sorry, God.” Then the Lord God’s anxious and seeking love becomes an active love and he takes matters into his own hands. There in the garden he turned on his heels to the devil himself, “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.” Beginning then, the devil would never be considered a friend by anyone who belongs to God. Beginning then, the influence of the devil’s unbelieving followers in the world would be noticeably poisonous to the believing followers of God. And at a time to come in the future, one descendant of Eve would have his heel bitten by the devil’s bite but turn and crush the devil in conquering defeat.
Here, breathed by God’s promise in the garden, is Jesus Christ, the paradise of sinners. Today we witness him in the wilderness, harassed continuously for 40 days by the devil’s fiery temptations, clamped by the serpent’s venomous fangs, and he deals the first crushing blow to Satan’s head by his perfect obedience. Whatever you have done in disobedience to the Lord God go to the Garden of Eden today where he comes for you, calls to you, “Where are you?” then go to him … tell him how sorry you are … let him cover your shame with his forgiving love. Whatever you have done in disobedience to the Lord God go to the wilderness today and see Jesus fight temptation for you and then say to God with him in perfect obedience, “I will trust and love you more than all things.” Whatever you have done in disobedience to the Lord God go to the cross and the tomb today and see Jesus’ heel bitten by the snake but the snake’s head crushed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that saves you from sin’s curse and temptation’s power and the lies of the devil.
Milwaukee Magazine suggests that winter in Wisconsin may not be so bad after all, and that paradise may be closer than the tropical beaches of Puerto Vallarta. Don’t just shovel the snow but go out and play in it; make snowmen or snow angels or engage in snow ball fights. Roll your car windows down (turning up the heater, of course) and breathe in the crisp, invigorating winter air. Take advantage of the shorter lines at Culver’s on a wintry day and grab a frozen custard. Paradise isn’t just out of your reach waiting for you to make the next move. Paradise isn’t the next level of earthly pleasure or a life without trouble or pain. Paradise is the Lord God and his love for you in Jesus Christ. The chilling reality of sin’s winter on this earth doesn’t allow us to experience the full pleasures of that paradise until heaven, but a Taste of Paradise is ours to enjoy right now. And a taste – of Jesus – is all we need. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on February 10, 2008
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