On the Long Road from Eden

We've been walking in the footsteps of Adam and Eve. All of us. Sent from the presence of God, banned from ever returning to Eden, and condemned to desperation, conflict, and futility. So we walk. We're not getting along, so we don't talk much. We're each blaming the other for what happened. And maybe we're each dreaming about Eden, remembering Eden, longing for Eden. And then after a while we get tired of that. It's useless. What good does it do? So we try to forget it. We try to put Eden out of our thoughts forever. There never was an Eden. We never walked with God in the garden. It was a dream. Life has always been what it is, dog eat dog from beginning to end. Never an Eden, never a Creator overseeing it all and responsible for it all. Never any of that. Just this dusty road. This daily blaming.

Still, you cannot forget, no matter how hard you try, the promise. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the snake. How distant and obtuse that must have seemed to them. Especially after so many years. What did it mean? When? It's not much of a promise to put your hope in, not much to stave off despair during the long, cold nights.

So the road goes on, generation after generation, and the collection of stories we Christians call the Old Testament is the story of that road, and the lives lived along that road. The road from Eden. And it is also the story of God giving ever more largeness and clarity to that vague promise in Genesis 3. As Eden recedes in the proverbial rear-view mirror, the promise grows and takes on greater particularity, greater distinction. Even as Israel spirals downward, the promise looms larger. But it is a long road from Genesis 3 to Isaiah 51.

I've been reading Romans 1 all month. The second half of that chapter, beginning at the 18th verse, is Paul's depiction of the road from Eden. It is futile, fruitless, and spirals downward. But the first half of the chapter indicates that something has happened to change the dynamic. The promise that began in Genesis 3 and grew in clarity of expression through the centuries, that promise has been fulfilled in Jesus.

I think we fail to understand how stunning that assertion is. We have on the one hand this depiction of a world in moral freefall. Like Adam and Eve, all humanity is "given up" by God to pursue its own path. But on the other hand, people from among that company are "called to be saints" (v.7) It is possible to speak of people having peace with God (v.7) and of being saved (v.16).

It's starting to look like there are two kinds of people in the world, according to Paul. There are, on the one hand, the "given up" by God (v.24, v.26, v,28). Eugene Peterson's rendering of that last verse is typically memorable:

Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose.

And then there are the called, the set apart. These folk owe it all to Jesus, the fulfillment of all the historic promises of God to Israel. It is a gift, clearly, since these set apart ones were every bit as "given up" as anyone else. And yet now, through faith, they speak of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified son of a Galilean carpenter, as Jesus the Messiah and Lord (v.4).

All this begs many questions, which Paul will go on to address in later chapters, but that's all I wanted to say this morning. Those walking the long road from Eden have discovered hope. Not a new hope, but something promised to our parents, Adam and Eve, back at the start. Something big has happened, and it is changing everything.