Image: iStockphoto: © stphillips
Reading: Genesis 3
Not the way it should be…
The big day has finally arrived!
No, not your wedding day. Not your 21st. Not the big promotion.
It’s the day you get the huge Samsung curved screen TV.
It takes up half your lounge room. And before you install it, you have to extend the room by several meters, otherwise you’re sitting so close your hair stands on end…
Anyway, it’s all there. You have the chips. The dip. The Shiraz. And you’re hanging out for the final of Masterchef…
You turn it on, the screen springs to life, but all you can get is Extra – A channel dedicated to advertising stuff no one needs. But this is your new 65″ curved screen TV, so you watch a little Brazil Butt Lift, and then try another channel.
Extra.
But now it’s Dr Ho’s Pain Therapy. IN disbelief, you hit the remote again.
Extra.
And your next thought is… This is not the way its supposed to be. There’s something wrong with this thing…
In that moment of frustration, though you might not know it, you express a core truth of humanity and the world we live in: This is not the way it is supposed to be.
There seems to be a universal sense that things should be better than what they are.
That cancer is ugly and wrong.
That people should be honest.
That people should be able to walk down any street on any night and have no fear.
That politicians and orphanage workers can be trusted.
That some church leader is not going to abuse my child.
That people should not have to seek asylum ever.
Why do we have this sense, this deep rooted belief, that things should be better?
In this Foundations series we want to understand basic Christian teaching. The core message of what God is doing in the world. And one of Christianity’s core beliefs is that things should be better than what they are. The Bible tells us where that core belief comes from.
Sin… meaning what?
The problem is summed up in one word: sin.
And our problem is that our culture has no real concept of what that is.
Let’s do something on the fly: Fire up your browser and go to Google.com.au and starting type ‘sinful’
The first entries are generally things like ‘sinful iPhone, sinful colours, sinful chocolate, sinful dessert…’
See what’s going on?
Sin has become fun. Stuff you eat. Great experiences. Things we typically enjoy. Here’s the point: If Google’s definition is what people are thinking about sin, it’s no wonder we’re confused. Who needs to repent of eating a cake? Or chocolate?
In contrast to this, the Bible says our world is broken. And we need to ask, ‘how did this happen?’ If God created the world, “and it was very good”, how come it falls so far short of that today? How is it that human wrongdoing, or the threat of it, mars every workday, every child’s school day, every family holiday? [see Plantinga, p.8]
That’s the question. And we are not going to like the answer because the Bible says we human are to blame.
Read Gen 3:1-7
Adam and Eve had been told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But instead of obedience, they chose disobedience. Instead of trusting God, they chose independence. Instead of submission, they chose rebellion. Their action became humanity’s spiritual coup d’état. A seizure of power from the world’s rightful and loving ruler.
That first act of rebellion has affected all humanity. Relationships between people and people are a mess. Relationships between people and nature; people and God; people and themselves; nature and God – all polluted. The whole universe manifests the ugly evidence that things are not they way they should be.
How pervasive, insistent and ugly is this human rebellion against God. It stains every act. It pollutes every disposition. It brings brokenness into every life context. It affects all of us, right to the core.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV)
The lousy smell of rebellion makes its way into every part of life. Like those embarrassing times when you walk into an important meeting with some post canine material on your shoe. You can smell it. Others can smell it. And you’re thinking, ‘phwoah, what’s that funky smell… that’s not they way it’s supposed to be…’ And you realise, way too late, that it’s been your problem all along.
Is there anywhere in that room where the smell does not make its heinous presence known? So also, there is no part of life that is unaffected by human rebellion and indifference against God. This is what we refer to when we talk about total depravity.
We are not as bad as we can get. But the smell of the fall impacts every part of human personhood.
The analogy actually falls down because actually everyone has that mess to deal with, and not just on their shoe – but deep within.
Seen those images of Isis militants executing people in cold blood?
Heard the reports of institutional abuse from the current Royal Commission in Australia?
Noticed that in your relationships there is not only wonderful capacity for love and joy, but also dreadful ability for pain, hurt and rejection?
this sin, this smell of the fall, it is not just ‘out there’. It is right here in this gathering. It is in our hearts. It is part of us
We cannot always measure culpability for it, but this rebellion possesses appalling force. Simply by our habitual practice, we let loose a great, rolling momentum of moral and spiritual evil across generations. By doing such things, we involve ourselves deeply in what theologians call corruption. [Plantinga, p.27]
See, this sin, this smell of the fall, it is not just ‘out there’. It is right here in this gathering. It is in our hearts. It is part of us.
And God hates it.
Not simply because it violates his law, but more substantively because it violates his shalom. Because it breaks the peace he first poured into his creation.
It interferes with the way things are supposed to be. [see Plantinga, p.27]
Now we have all seen and heard the voice of militant atheism raging against Christianity and faith in God. These voices trouble us, and threaten us. We will sometimes find ourselves cowering in their icy blast.
But think about it: What can atheists say about our human condition? What hope do they offer? Every person who does not believe in the living Lord, what hope do you have?
What challenge, ultimately, do you offer to the ugliness, the evil, the injustice we see in our world? What have you got to say?
You have no solution. You present no hope for your world. You offer no prospect that things will ever be any different.
When the next abuser is unmasked; when the next grotesque injustice is perpetrated;
when the next family breaks down; the next marriage vow broken; the next time children weep themselves to sleep; all you can say is ‘this is the way things are and it will never be any different.’
What a hopeless way to live.
What a pathetic view of life.
Solution
So here is the question we all need to answer, right here, right now:
Do we just accept that this is the way things are?
Do you want to go on living with the belief that things will never change?
Do you want to deny that cry from deep within that there has to be another way, a better way, a way of hope?
This is why you need to trust God.
If we go back to that initial act of rebellion, right back in the garden, we see that the moment humans rejected God, the moment they turned their back on him, the moment judgement descended, this same God – his own heart grieving – promised life and hope.
Humanity is hiding, living in guilt.
And God is seeking, speaking grace (Gen 3:9).
To the serpent, the evil one’s agent of the fall, this God says
“…I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”” (Genesis 3:15, NIV)
He turns the children of the women, ultimately children of faith, into polar opposites of evil. He creates an antithesis, an ingrained opposition, an enmity between those who seek to live for God and those who would persist live without him.
This God of hope promises that one day, One would come who would crush the head of evil for all time. One who would bring an end to the pain, the tears, the grief, the crying and mourning and injustice and deceit.
God’s plan is that his people, those who despite their wrongdoing and rebellion, would still trust him, that through these people he would show what life was meant to be like. He promised that ultimately, from these very people, One would be born who would ultimately crush this evil power, and start to bring things back to the way they should be.
We read the OT and we see how God chose a people as his very own. How he lived with them. They were his people, his priests, his holy nation. He would be their God. And We see them stumble and fall and fail, and lose faith.
But God stays remains faithful to his promises. His faithfulness knows no limit.
And all through the years He sent prophets who
“dreamed of a new age in which human crookedness would be straightened out, rough places made plain. The foolish would be made wise, and the wise, humble. They dreamed of a time when the deserts would flower, the mountains would run with wine, weeping would cease, and people could go to sleep without weapons on their laps. People would work in peace and work to fruitful effect. Lambs could lie down with lions. All nature would be fruitful, benign, and filled with open wonder. All humans would be knit together in brotherhood and sisterhood; and all nature and all humans would look to God, walk with God, lean toward God, and delight in God. Shouts of joy and recognition would well up from valleys and seas, from women in streets and from men in ships.”
[Plantinga p.9-10]
The NT tells us that Jesus is the one to bring this new creation. He is our promised rescuer – more about that next week.
Be sure of this: through this Jesus God is answering the rebellion of humanity that has wrecked his world.
Writing about Jesus, Paul says
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:19–20, NIV)
This is the peace we all long for.
It comes through Jesus, who lived and died and rose again. His birth, life, death, and rising are historically verifiable events. The resurrection of Jesus vindicates His claim to be creation’s rescuer, your Saviour, your very present hope.
through this Jesus God is answering the rebellion of humanity that has wrecked his world
This Jesus – in a way that we can scarcely comprehend – is awakening that sense in you that ‘things are not the way they should be’.
He’s telling you that your world is broken. That you are broken. That we are all broken.
His death and rising again show that he has the power to put us back together.
To deal with our rebellion.
Our fallen acts.
Our fallen disposition.
Our corruption.
And he is calling you to trust Him.
To come on board with his all powerful effort to make things right.
So that instead of being stuck in rebellion, we might be free, our world made right, and one day, at last, everything will be the way it should be.
[I acknowledge with thanks the clarity Cornelis Plantinga has brought to this discussion with his work ‘Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be – A Breviary of Sin‘ This book breathes the hope of Christ into any discussion of our deepest and ugliest realities]
A Sermon & A Study 