Creation and Fall Sermon | June 9, 2024

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Summer day camp started this week at Here We Grow for elementary kids, and they’ve been exploring the theme of creation.

Talking about creation with little kids is easy, right? Every children’s Bible includes the story of God speaking and forming the world, light and darkness on the first day, water and land on the second, then plants, animals, all of that.

Once kids get a little older though, they start asking questions. Miss Lisa, who’s teaching day camp, has been dealing with questions this week like “Did Jesus create everything, or was it the Father, or the Holy Spirit?” and “If God created everything, who created God?” Great questions!

There are people whose life’s work is trying to explain creation, either trying to reconcile the scientific record with seven days, or trying to find the geographical location of the garden of Eden (which, by the way, is actually about 45 minutes away from here, between Campbellsport and Fond du Lac. There’s a sign that says Garden of Eden.)

There was actually a Methodist minister by the name of David Van Slyke who published a tract in 1886 with his supposedly scientific conclusion that the historical garden of Eden was located in Galesville Wisconsin, between La Crosse and Winona.

Genesis itself doesn’t give us much historical detail, because that’s not the point. The point of the creation story—and most scholars will argue Genesis actually includes two creation stories, the cosmic seven days version in chapter one and the more intimate telling in Genesis 2 with God the gardener shaping man from the dust of the earth and breathing the breath of life into him—the point of the creation stories is to explain how we got here.

The most important part about creation is what it says about God and about us. And according to Genesis, God is creator. God is the source of life. God is the one who speaks the world into being, who provides the breath of life, who molds and forms us. Our life—my life, your life—comes from God.

You and I are part of creation, and we owe our lives to God. God is in charge.

That doesn’t help with the unanswerable philosophical question of where did God come from, but it’s an explanation of how we got here. The Creator formed the world and called it good.

But then the story continues, and again, the point of the story is not the scientific or historical details, but the implications for us today. It’s about the “human condition” if you want to use the fancy philosophy term. Because we’re not living in paradise anymore. Much of this world does not seem very good, even if it was created that way.

So to explain how we got into this situation, Genesis tells us about the forbidden fruit. Everything in the wonderful garden God has created is for the benefit of Adam, the first man made from the dust of the earth, who represents all of humankind…everything except for the forbidden fruit of this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And so, of course, Adam eats the forbidden fruit. Well, first the serpent tempts Eve, the woman God has made, and she eats it, and then Adam eats it. But this is not a gender thing, or trying to blame one person; Adam represents all humanity. We all would do the same thing. God gives us a choice, and we choose disobedience. We all choose rebellion.

Adam’s act is the first sin. Did you hear what the serpent had said? This is the temptation: “When you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This is the first time humanity tries to take the place of God. Instead of being content to be the creation, being content to rely on the Creator for life, we try to find our own source of life, apart from God.

To use the language of Greek mythology, Pandora’s box is opened. All the problems in the world, according to Genesis, come from us getting mixed up about our relationship with God, trying to make it on our own.

The nature of sin is to look for life apart from our Creator. Centuries later, it’s the first of the ten commandments: God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Put the creator first. Keep the Creator in the proper place. Let the Creator set the rules for creation. Let God be God.

The temptation in the garden, the temptation of sin, the temptation we all face, is to listen to the voice saying you can be in control, you can make it on your own. You know best. You can be like God. That’s the lie from the enemy. It’s a seductive lie, because we want to be the ones in charge. That’s our sinful nature, the “old Adam” as Paul will put it later to the Corinthians.

That’s what I hope you confessed earlier, at the start of our worship service. I hope you confessed the times you tried to go your own way, despite knowing how God said you should live. The times you put yourself before others.

We use different wordings for confession sometimes, and I appreciate that because there are times when we need to get more specific, but as a general “catch-all” confession, I really like the one we used today from the hymnal: “We confess that we have turned from you and given ourselves into the power of sin.” To turn away from God is sin. Every sin we commit—everything we do wrong—is because we’ve turned away from God, gone our own way.

In the Gospel reading today, Jesus talks about the unforgivable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I wish Jesus used a little nicer wording, but the way I understand this idea of an unforgivable sin (because that’s a scary thought, right?) my understanding of blaspheming the Holy Spirit is that it’s denying God’s work.

It’s rejecting what God is doing through the Holy Spirit, rejecting God’s call for you. And to deny God is the source of life is to condemn yourself to death, because separating yourself from the source of life is death.

Psalm 121 asks, “From where will my help come?” Where do I look for salvation, for rescue, for the opportunity to break out of this fallen, broken human condition? Where is my source of life? Here’s the answer: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” and me. I will look to God for life.

As we say in the Gospel acclamation (echoing Peter in John 6), “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. There is no other source of life. There is nowhere else we can turn to escape the power of death, the consequences of our turning away from God. Only Jesus has defeated the grave. Our hope is in Christ alone.

Only God can forgive our sin, our selfishness, and bring us back to how we were created to be, to the state we were in at the garden.

One of the most immediate results of the “fall” is Adam and Eve realize they are naked, and as Daniel Carlson puts it, they “are afraid of the vulnerability in which they now find themselves.” The vulnerability isn’t just in their lack of clothing; it’s that now they’re on their own. They’ve decided they know what’s best, that they should be the ones making choices, going their own way, and the consequences of that are terrifying. We can’t reach eternity on our own, so on our own, the end destination is death.

And yet, there is hope. Notice in the story, even after they’ve sinned, God comes to them. God comes walking through the garden looking for them.

The consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin is that they must leave paradise. If you keep reading, there’s even an angel with a flaming sword posted at the gate, guarding the perfect creation from getting destroyed by the sinful, selfish humans.

But then the entire rest of the Bible is the story of God working to restore the relationship, trying to bring us back to righteousness, to a state of being in right relationship with our Creator, where we live as the recipients of God’s love and rely on God for life.

Julian Holguin puts it this way: “The promise of a Redeemer reflects God’s relentless pursuit of transformation and restoration—a continuous urging toward beauty, goodness, and wholeness within the evolving moments of existence.”

Instead of just kicking us out of the garden and abandoning us, God descends from heaven, comes out of paradise, and enters our world in person. God comes to us. When we take the freedom God has given us and use it to turn inward—towards ourselves, doing our own thing, apart from God—God comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, offering forgiveness, grace, and new life. As Jesus says in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

This is the good news: Your sins don’t get the last word, because the Creator is not willing to give up on the creation. Jesus comes to restore us to the life God always intended for us.

So the question for us today is this: Will you continue in the path of Adam and Eve? Will you continue trying to take the place of God, trying to take control of your life?
Or will you let God be God? That’s what it means to give your life to God, to follow Jesus as a Christian, right?

Admitting that you and I can’t find life on our own, and accepting that the only true life comes from God as a free gift in Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, forgive us when we try to go our own way. Forgive us when we take for granted the gift of life you have given us. We want to be your people. We want to live the life you intend for us. Thank you for your grace and forgiveness that set us free from our selfish rebellion and restore us to right relationship with you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.