Jesse Tree (December 2)

Day 2:  Fall (Genesis 2:4 – 3:24)

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For the little ones I've included this simply written story.  But for you, take this moment to let the bitterness of sin sit scandalously on your tongue, and choke down the sourness of a death justly deserved.  Shoulder the weight of God's righteous wrath bearing down.  And then listen.  Can you tune your ear to hear the song of graces in curses, rising above the cacophony?  "God does not owe kindness.  He does not even owe patience.  He has every right to implement the promised punishment with no questions asked" (1).  But if you can hear it, he sings a song of salvation that can only arise through righteous judgment. The judgment of a "righteous and merciful, loving and just, holy and forgiving" God, for his own glory.  His judgment is looming, and his promise has been conceived.  Will you surrender your sin-stained self and seek his mercy?

Day 2:  Creation (Genesis 2:4-3:24)

God created a perfect world in six days – and filled it with so many blessings!  The radiating warmth of the sun, crunchy plants to munch, intriguing animals of all kinds, pure and perfect love, the intimacy of marriage, and the enduring connection of family – what more could we want?  What could possibly go wrong?

It would have been easy to abide by God’s commands:  be fruitful and increase in number, rule over the earth, and just one more: “Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge in the garden,” God warned, “because if you do you will surely die.”   

The penalty for disobeying this one prohibition of God was death, but he wasn’t asking much.  All they had to do was obey him and trust him, and they had everything they could ever ask for – life in paradise! 

But… a slithery, tricky little snake had other ideas.  “Did God really say you couldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?” 

Hmm…  all of a sudden it didn’t sound quite as fair.  Why wouldn’t God want me to have it?  Eve questioned.  What’s he trying to keep me from?  But then she remembered, “God said we CAN eat from almost all of them…well, except one…only one.”

Maybe she felt good about coming to God’s defense, but she also sensed the temptation growing inside her…so she added a little to God’s command, perhaps to try to move herself a little further from breaking it.

“We can’t even touch it,” she appended, “because if we do we will surely die.” 

But did God say she couldn’t touch it?  God NEVER said that!  In fact, she could have held it all she wanted.  But, by changing God’s law, by moving his boundary, she began to lose sight of his true command.  It was just a little further away in her mind than it was before.  Yes, she recalled.  Yes she could touch it.  So she picked it up.   

Oh, it looks so good. 

“You will not surely die” enticed the snake. 

Hmmm… wondered Eve.  What does this snake know that I don’t?  Is God lying to me?  

“If you eat it,” continued the snake, “your eyes will be opened – you will see things you’ve never seen before – and you with know BOTH good and evil!”

Oh, finally it made sense!  God WAS keeping something from her – there were things she didn’t know…what were they? How bad could it be to want to know more?  She desired to know – so she sunk her teeth into the fruit and invited Adam to have a little too.  After they’d both had their fill they glanced around and perceived a shift.  The garden looked a little different.  They felt a little different.  A little colder than they remembered.  Their glances met and their eyes grew ever wider.  They stared at each other in horror.

Are we?  Yes, we are…naked! They both thought to themselves.

Oh my, they were so embarrassed, and they scrambled to wrap giant leaves around themselves.  Then, in the distance, they heard the crunch of footsteps traversing toward them through the garden.  In the pit of their stomachs they knew who was coming.  It was God...  God, with whom they had sauntered through the cool, crisp garden every day before, coming unsettlingly closer.  Oh no, they flustered.  What will God think?  And they bolted behind a tree to shield themselves from the God who made all, sees all, KNOWS all.

Rather than tell the truth about what they had done and beg God’s mercy, they tried to hide it.  They scrambled to make it sound... not so bad.  They crafted their excuses.  Each attempted to displace their guilt onto another, but blame didn’t fix anything.  It wasn’t honest, and God knew. 

And so they had called upon themselves the curse of breaking God’s command.

Life would not be as it was.

Men would have to work much harder now.  It would be more difficult to care for creation.

Adam was now a little broken, too.  A broken man working a crippled land.  It would be an arduous task to provide the simple things his wife and family needed.

Life for women would increase in difficulty, too.  They would struggle to know blessing of children, even to bring forth new life.  And husbands and wives would strain to love each other perfectly.  They would grow selfish in their desires.  They would aspire to control each other.  They would heap up unfair expectations upon each other.  Sometimes they would clash, they would bellow and bark at each other... or worse.

That snake, he wouldn't get off too easy either.  He would be constrained to slither along the ground for the rest of his life, choking down the dust the dust of the earth, his seed embroiled in chronic battle with the human's progeny.

But tenderly hidden in this curse on the snake was a promise for the human beings that God had created to love, for it would one day be a child of Eve who would come to crush the serpent and break the power of sin once for all time. The serpent would persist incessently vigilant for that One who would execute the final inevitable crushing blow.

Adam and Eve, before they were forced to abandon the garden paradise, would receive one further mercy as God himself sacrificed an animal to fashion for them clothes that could cloak the shame they felt.  This was the first sacrifice.

Remember, each sin calls forth death, and so this animal died... instead of them.  But, neither were they to experience the fullness of life anymore.  Already part of them lived in death, because they couldn't any longer live every day of their life immersed in the beneficient imminance of God.  They were aligned with the broken world.  Separated from his holy presence.  They were detached from the source of life Himself.  And one day their bodies would perish, too, like that creature that gave up its life to wrap around their naked bodies and cover over the shame of their sin.

But for now, they were thankful for God’s mercy, for the breath in their lungs, and for the grace that he showed them as they walked away from the perfect home God had designed for them… 

They left it behind forever and walked into the unknown and broken world.

Can you taste it?  The bitterness of sin?  The sourness of death? 

And who hasn’t sinned?  Who of us doesn’t deserve the same fate as that animal? 

Every day of life is a gift because it is not what we deserve.  And right now, in this season, we are waiting with Adam and Eve for the child of Eve to come and save the world.   

The God-child, Jesus Christ. 

Our sin demands a death.  Come, Lord Jesus!  Come and save us!

How long, O Lord, until you will send us your Son to save us?

******
HOW WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY RESPOND?  
Some ideas, to get you started.
 

Questions to Inspire Family Discussion:
How were others affected by the sinful choices of one person?
How did the curse of sin affect Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the world?
How do sins continue to affect people beyond those who are guilty of a particular sin today?
Why is death a consequence of sin?

Learn together:

Read Romans 16:19, 20 together and discuss the similarities to the curse on the serpent.  Who does this passage prophesy will be the child of Eve that will crush the serpent? 

Discuss how God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Look at Luke 3:23-38.  Talk together about how Jesus is the child of Eve that we celebrate at Christmas - because he has come to crush the head of the serpent and save us from our sin.

Optional discussion with mature children:  How Pornography Affects The World

You may want to explore a current issue, for instance how pornography impacts the person who watches it, but also impacts people beyond the person watching it.

"To viewers, pornography can appear a fantasy world of pleasure and thrills. To those who create and participate in making pornography, however, their experiences are often flooded with drugs, disease, rape and abuse....  Not only do pornographers crop out the severe physical and emotional pain actors experience, but in many cases they also hide the fact that some “performers” aren’t given any choice at all." (Fight the New Drug, p. 23)

Pray for these people who are hurt by the choice of others to watch pornography.

Pray for God to heal us from our sinful desires, and to help us to honor him in the ways we express and fulfill our desires within the boundaries of his created intent for us. 

Pray together:

Gracious Lord, you alone are righteous and holy, and in your presence no one can
stand. Your gracious mercy is our only hope and we ask for your forgiveness. We
pray for your cleansing touch to wash away our corruption, for your grace to clothe us in
righteousness, and for your hands to rework our lives anew. We pray these things
in Jesus Christ's holy name. Amen 
(adapted from here)

 

Sing together:
Purify My Heart (youtube)

(Instrumental)

(Chords)

Go out and share the good news! 
The next time someone asks you why such bad things happen in the world, you could share how the Bible teaches that the world was created to be good, but was broken by the sins of human beings.  Share the hope that we have in Christ, whose coming we celebrate at Christmas.

 

In what ways are you tempted to meet the world's expectations while sacrificing God's standards?  Is there a way to share this story, demonstrating your solidarity with God, and sharing the goodness of God's design for the world?

The next time you feel tempted by a friend to do something you know you should not, you could share how this story demonstrates that our actions don't just impact ourselves.  They ripple out to impact others around us, and more broadly, the world.