1st Sunday in Advent

Meditation

INI

Text: Genesis 3:8-10; Matthew 11:28; Isaiah 40:28-31

1^st Meditation — Genesis 3:8-10

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

In Christ Jesus, who entered this world to destroy the work of Satan but as our Prince of Peace, dear fellow redeemed:

Sin is such an ugly thing, is it not? Oh, it parades itself as something appealing, but it is so very ugly. It took the form of a beautiful piece of fruit in the Paradise that was our world, but the results of ingesting that beautiful piece of fruit were pure ugliness. The love, the trust, the intimacy of relationships both between men and God and between man and his wife were lost in a sea of fear and shame, of ignorance and angry accusations. Oh yes, sin is an ugly thing!

What was God’s response to Adam and Eve’s sin? It was not what we might expect—we who by nature are sinful and whose responses to sin are tainted by our own weak and sinful natures. God did not hurt…God did not shout…God did not try to hit or seek to harm His created beings who had fallen from such heights of perfection through their gross act of rebellion…no, He simple asked them a question, “Where are you?” Why ask a question, the answer to which He already knew? God could see our original parents as they tried to hide in the midst of the garden. He asked the question, because through it He was inviting Adam and Eve to deal with their sin in a constructive way. He was inviting them to come back to Him—to be reconciled with Him, to become one with Him once again and so to experience healing. God was in effect saying to Adam and Eve what He would later say to ancient Israel, “Come now, and let us reason together…though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; thought they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 118). Yes, COME, ALL WHO ARE CAUGHT IN SIN, COME TO YOUR SAVIOR GOD…COME TO THE PRINCE OF PEACE!

The goal of Satan in any temptation is to destroy trust and to deprive us of that which is most precious. Satan wants us to live our lives in fear and uncertainty. Consider the case of Adam and Eve. Satan began with a question, “Has God indeed said?” (Genesis 3:1) His goal was not information, but dissension. He wanted to create a division and what better way than to undermine the precious trust relationship that existed between our parents and their heavenly Father and so deprive them of the blessings of that relationship. He promised that their eyes would be opened…that they would “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), but what they truly received was the burden of fear and ignorance that drove them into hiding.

Does Satan succeed in doing this in our lives? Do we often reach out for that piece of forbidden fruit, whatever it may be—the item I want, but for which I am unable to pay, but then decide to steal, the kiss that is so exciting but leads to an intimacy reserved for marriage, the desire to grow rich, which leads us to neglect our families and place at risk our closest relationships? And with what results? Our consciences are burdened with guilt? Our lives are filled with fear? We begin to avoid God. We resent God and Satan stokes the fire by suggesting that it was God’s fault anyway, because He did not provide for us as we indeed thought He should. So we run and we hide in our fear and our misery avoiding God, who remains our only and ultimate solution!

My dear friends—do not allow sin to separate you from God. Come to Him—trust in Him! His goal is always our good. His goal is to bring us back into a loving relationship with Him, so that our fears might be removed—so that Jesus, our Prince of Peace, might live in our hearts!

—Pastor Paul D. Nolting