Saturday, January 5, 2013

No food, no home, no place to go.   No domesticated oxen, no horses.  No chickens in the hen house.  No hen house.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And no one to ask how to do anything.  But the worst possible thing was: no access to God.  All they had was what they remembered.  The memory of a perfect garden.  The memory of a friend called God.

From this point forward Man could only speak to God when God chose to speak to Man.  And there would be appointed places for this to occur.  In a tabernacle, in a temple, on a mountain.  Man would have to actively seek God.  The Bible says that man would seek the 'face' of God.  But no man would be allowed to see God's face.  This was now denied.

 Then Eve has sons: Cain and Abel.  Cain tilled the ground.  Abel tended sheep.  You have to wonder how long it took before Adam rounded up a herd of wild sheep, how long before he figured out a way to dig the earth up so he could plant it.  How long before his sons were able to help him.  Everything was very, very hard.

And Eve: childbirth without ever seeing a child born before.  No idea of what was coming next.  And the pain--and no way of knowing when it would end.  Would it be hours, or days?  The result of her curse didn't arrive as soon as Adam's did, but when it came, Eve could see into the future and expect to go through this pain every time she had a child.  For every child that has been born into the world, some woman has suffered.   And all for a piece of fruit.

And then Cain kills Abel.  Over a sacrifice.  God demanded a sacrifice to remind them of the payment that had been paid in the garden for sin.  Nothing but a sacrifice would do.  But Cain wanted to offer something else.  A shortcut.  And when God didn't accept it, Cain got mad and killed his brother.  A new sin occurs:  Anger.  And anger produces murder.  What a mess.  What a family.

No comments:

Post a Comment