God Has a Surprise for You
Genesis chapter three is a familiar portion of Scripture to most Bible readers, but with open hearts, as though reading it for the first time, we discover that God has a surprise for us. March 13, 2011.
“Surprise, surprise, surprise!” A good-natured, naive country-boy named Gomer Pyle lived in Mayberry, North Carolina, and worked at Wally’s Filling Station. After two years of comic relief on The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer got his own show on CBS from September 1964 to May 1969. He was often awestruck by the simplest of things, resulting in the exclamation of his catch-phrases, “Shazam!” and “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
Gomer’s naiveté is a rare quality in our cynical, sophisticated, high-tech world. But there’s something about that quizzical and open attitude that would stand every one of us in good stead, especially when we open the Scriptures. Church-goers are supposed to know the Bible and its teachings. So, what in all the world are nice, church-going, Bible-reading folks like us supposed to learn from a portion of Scripture which we’ve known from our mothers’ knees? What in all the world can we glean from Genesis chapter three, today’s first lesson? The answer is everything – everything about our God, our relationship with God, our attitude about life here, and our confidence in life hereafter. With all that at stake, I invite you to approach these words of God with a Gomer-like naiveté, as though you’re pondering them for the first time, because God has a surprise for you.
Rebellion
It’s hard to picture. Bunnies and bears, lions and lambs, creatures and the Creator all got along. Best of all, people were walking hand-in-hand with God. The world into which God placed Adam and Eve was perfect – perfect weather, perfect surroundings, perfect love for each other, and a perfect bond of love and trust with God himself. Everything was good, very good. Then, like a surprise snowstorm on a late-April afternoon, everything was bad, very bad. Satan, in the form of a snake, wormed his way into Eve’s heart, “God has a surprise for you,” he told her, “He’s got something up his sleeve. He’s holding out on you and not telling you that eating of this tree will give you super power. If you take the initiative, if you do something, if you eat of this tree, you are going up. You will be like God.” Adam was right there, thinking to himself, “Who am I to step in and interrupt the fun? Go for it, girl! I’ll go along for the elevator ride with you all the way up to God-status.”
No stakes of any Texas hold ’em game have ever been higher. Adam and Eve gambled with their lives and the lives of all people ever to be born and lost! Life on earth would never be the same. From that moment on, the Garden of Eden was no longer a parcel of paradise. The old evil foe had injected the venom of sin, and sin infected all. Bunnies ran away in fear. Lions killed. Thistles popped up. Spousal spats, crabby kids, anger, and abuse infiltrated the first home and every home thereafter. Worst of all, the rebellion of Adam and Eve trashed their relationship with God. They now had pitched their tent in Satan’s camp, and there was absolutely nothing they could do to crawl out, much less bleach out the stain of sin. They tried cover-up “and made coverings for themselves.” They tried hiding “from the LORD God among the trees of the garden” – as if you can hide from God! – They tried the blame game, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree” … “The serpent [you made] deceived me”, in essence, blaming God for their mess! For such rebellion God had every right to fling them into hell with their new buddy, Satan.
People have scratched their heads in Gomer-like naiveté, trying to figure out why the world seems so out of kilter and why their lives are so dysfunctional. Why do terrorists hijack planes and kill innocent people? Why do thieves break into apartments and steal HD-TVs? Why do people get drunk or do drugs? Why do people experiment with sex outside of marriage? Why do boorish men harass women and others absent themselves into couch-potato-dom? Why do you and I find ourselves looking across the aisle at other people whom we consider to be worse sinners than ourselves? Why do we hold grudges, get jealous, and talk behind other people’s backs? Why do we sometimes seek happiness our own way as if we are so smart, as if God doesn’t know what’s good for us?
It’s all because of me. Are you surprised by that? I’m the one to blame because I have not been generous, kind, and loving, because I have not done all that God has wanted me to do. And it’s all because of you. Are you surprised by that? You are to blame because you have been greedy, uncaring, loveless, and lazy. And if your blood is boiling, and you’re getting mad at me right about now, you’re just proving the point. Our inherited, in-born rebellion leads to such arrogance that we join to confess our sins in worship and hardly mean it. After all, we say to ourselves: “No one knows how often I mentally stick out my tongue at my boss when he’s not looking.” “No one knows how often my motivation at my job is not Jesus’ love and the talents he gave me but money and more money.” “No one knows how often I cheated on tests and plagiarized from the Internet to finish essays.” “No one knows the times I smoked a joint to mellow out or stuck my finger down my throat so I wouldn’t gain weight from the food I scarfed.” But surprise, surprise, surprise! God knows. There can be no fruit-bearing in our lives or families or workplaces or congregation unless we visit this garden and grasp the surprising but somber truth that we are the ones to blame. You can do all the analysis you want. You can try to blame it on post-modern culture or the economy or fleeing legislators or the governor, but God has a surprise for you. The bottom line for the problems in our world, our homes, and our lives is still our in-born rebellion. And there is absolutely nothing we can do to bleach out the stain of sin.
Redemption
If you never read the Bible before, what would you expect God to do to Adam and Eve? Wouldn’t you expect him to hunt them down and hurl them into an eternal dungeon? But God had a surprise for them. Instead of squishing them like bugs, he called out, “Where are you?” That’s laughable because he knew exactly what shrub they were hiding behind. Why did he call out? He wanted them to step out and fess up. What did they do? They made excuses and blamed him. At that point you would expect steam to shoot out of God’s ears and flames from his nostrils. But God had a surprise for them. He didn’t blast them. He blasted Satan. “I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman.” Despite the fact that you, Satan, have lured her into your camp, I will make her hostile to you as she should be. And, Satan, I will put hatred “between your offspring [all who follow you and do what you want] and hers [all whom I, the LORD, will lead to believe in me]”. God promised that he would not only make Adam and Eve his friends again, but that many of their descendants would also trust in him rather than be friends with Satan. God promised redemption.
How was he going to do that? With fireworks and fanfare? No! Surprise, surprise, surprise! He planned to use one of the descendants of this woman. “He [one special offspring of the woman] will crush your head [Satan, although]you will strike his heel”. God did not at this time announce when or where or who that special offspring would be. That must have driven the devil crazy, “Which newborn will be my nemesis?” Satan knew that although he would get in a snake-like strike at the promised offspring, he could not win because God promised redemption.
Redemption is exactly what Jesus won! The Son of God declared, “People can’t live up to God’s standards? I’ll do that for them!” He vowed, “People have a a debt of sin they’ll never be able to pay? I’ll pay it for them!” When Jesus shouted, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), he announced to the world – to you and to me – “The serpent’s head has been crushed!” That promise of redemption brightened each day for Adam and Eve for the rest of their lives. By that promise they knew God would undo what they had done. By trusting in that coming Redeemer – surprise, surprise, surprise – Adam and Eve had redemption.
Like a man walking through a field of tall grass who gets bitten on the heel by a snake and then turns, shakes off the snake, and squishes its head, so Jesus was wounded by Satan’s bite, but shook off that snake and crushed the devil’s head. Satan may try to win a battle or two over us, but the war has already been won. This is exactly where the Genesis three account takes our breath away. In stunned amazement – because we know we don’t deserve it – we step into Adam and Eve’s make-shift sandals and hear the greatest surprise of all. God DOES HAVE a surprise for us, a surprise that puts a lump in our throat, a tear in our eye, and a perpetual smile on our faces – redemption. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. That is the message of the Lenten season, the message of this first Sunday in Lent, the message of this chapter of Scripture, and the message of the entire Bible.
With Gomer-like wonder we peel open our Bibles to Genesis three and find a long golden thread starting there and running from the Garden of Eden to Calvary outside of Jerusalem to Grace Church in Milwaukee. It’s all about Jesus and what he did for you, for me, for all, forever. The next time people ask you, “What’s new?” take them to Genesis three and say them, “God has a surprise for you, and I’d love to tell you about it.” Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on March 13, 2011
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