True.Stories.I.Made.Up.

In the beginning God bara’

In the beginning God created

In the beginning God made everything needed to form or shape  everything we see out of nothing.

Then God made light and darkness.

The waters and skies.

The seas and the land.

The days and the nights.

The creatures of the seas and the birds of the air.

The animals of the land and finally He bara’ man.

He created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.

Six days of creation, One day of rest and God sets the rhythm of life as he creates Eden.  The shalom of God is hovering over the earth as God and man walk peacefully in each other’s presence. 

Genesis 1 and 2 give us a snapshot of God’s intention for his people.  It gives us a glimpse into what was intended for all of us to enjoy but something goes wrong in Genesis 3.  Adam and Eve trade in heaven on earth, perfect union with God, a flawless harmony with creator and creation, for a granny smith apple.

All because a serpent deceived them.  Sin enters the world and everything that God created is thrown out of alignment with its original intent. 

We go from Adam and Eve eating an apple to the story of their son Cain killing their other son Able all because of jealousy.  Things go terribly wrong terribly fast.  We’ve gone from eating fruit to murder in one generation.  Things are falling apart very quickly.  So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden (Gen 4:16).

East of Eden.

East of heaven on earth.

East of perfect union with God.

East of original intent and flawless harmony.

And east this story continues to run because right after the murder, a close descendant of Cain’s, Lamech, says that if “Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”  The escalation of violence is so intense that a close relative of Cain’s says things are eleven times worse than they were before.  And then by chapter 6 of Genesis, just a few chapters after Cain kills Able, we find out that the whole world is headed for destruction except for one man and his family.  And by chapter 11, people have gotten together to build a tower that they are convinced will make them gods.  We started with two people and some fruit, which escalated to murder among family members and now has evolved into an entire civilization at odds with God.  What began in a little garden is now impacting the entire globe.

In Genesis 12 God reaches down by grace in attempts to restore his people by making a promise to man named Abram. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing (Gen 12:2).”  Abram is obedient to God in a crazy world and because of this his blessing is passed down to Isaac and then Jacob who later is given the name Israel.  Israel has twelve sons and through these 12 men we find ourselves even further east of Eden in the land of Egypt. 

Egypt, the superpower of its day, was ruled by Pharaoh, who responded to the growing number of Israelites in his country by forcing them into slavery.  They had to work every day without a break, making bricks building storehouses for Pharaoh.  Egypt is an Empire.  An Empire built on the backs of Israelite slave labor.  An Empire built by bricks. 400 years of bricks without stopping once. 

Until God sends a shepherd named Moses, a descendant of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, to stand against this Empire of bricks.  Moses challenges Pharaoh and they go back and forth many times until the night comes where Moses and the Israelites pack their things and leave Egypt.  Egypt chases them down, God parts the red sea, Israel escapes at the last moment and God allows Pharaoh and the rest of his brick obsessed empire to drown.  As the red sea closes in it silences just for a moment what started with our parents eating some fruit.

God for the first time since the Garden speaks to all of his people at the base of Mount Sinai.  God gives Moses the Ten Words or as we know them, the Ten Commandments.  God is reaching out and teaching his people how to be his people once again.  For 400 years their identity was bricks, bricks and more bricks and the Ten Words are God’s way of saying you are my beloved.  The Israelites journey through the desert for 40 years as God is bringing them to the land he promised them.  If they traveled straight to their destination it would have only taken them two weeks to do it.  While it took a matter of moments for God to free Israel from Egypt it about 40 years in the desert for God to get Egypt out of Israel.  It took 40 years to prepare his people for the land they would inherit. 

God’s words to the people through Moses begin with “if you obey me fully.”  Its an invitation, its an opportunity, but it’s a giant if, isn’t it?  “If you obey me fully.”  Which raises the question, Did they?  Were they true to these Ten Words?  These Ten Commandments?  This new instruction manual on how to be God’s people?  Were they true to this new covenant?  Did they obey him fully?  How did they respond to such an invitation?  What started with our parents eating fruit led us to Egypt, which got us to Sinai but to travel any further in this story we must go East of Eden some more.  We must journey to Jerusalem.

Generations later, the descendants of these wandering slaves have settled into the land they were promised.  Their great king David has secured their boarders, the land and people are experiencing peace, and David’s son Solomon comes to power.  Solomon is brilliant and wise and wealthy, and Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom, begins to gain a global reputation.  A queen from a different land, Sheba comes to visit Solomon.  She’s from far away, from a different land, from a different kind of people, with a different religion.  And she wants to know more about these people and their king and their God in Jerusalem.

Sounds a lot like the promise God gave to Abram is coming true.  God would bless him to be a blessing.  And here we are finally in the land God promised being a blessing to the world as Sheba travels to hear about this God.

This pegan queen comes to town and ask questions, eats meals, watch worship, she surveys the land and she says, “Because the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”

What is justice and righteousness?  Its freedom, liberation from violence, protection from anything dehumanizing.  Sheba understands that God has given all of this wealth and power and influence so that Solomon would in turn use these blessings to be a blessing.  To bless the poor, weak, and suffering from injustice.  Sheba gets it but does Solomon?

What does Solomon at the end of the day do with this blessing?  What does he do with this wealth and power and influence?  Does he steward it back to his people and bless them?

“Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer (1 Kings 9:15).

Another word for forced labor is, slave. 

And the temple, the palace, the walls, what could they possibly be made out of?

Bricks?

This is the same God who set his people free from being enslaved to making bricks.  And as a result of this freedom Solomon is now a king forcing the labor of bricks.

What started with fruit led us East of Eden and into slavery in Egypt.  God heard the cries of his people and freed them to Sinai.  He restored his people through the desert and back to the promised land of Jerusalem to be a blessing but instead they become their own Egypt. 

Solomon isn’t maintaining justice; he’s now perpetuating the very injustice his people once needed redemption from and, in the process, building a kingdom of comfort.  He dines in his palace and strolls on terraces built on the backs of Israelite slave labor.  God blesses his people to be a blessing and God’s people keep that blessing and build empires of bricks to protect it.

His empire become so big that he builds Hazor Megiddo and Gezer.  What are these towns?  They are military basses.  Solomon is using his massive resources and wealth to build military basses to protect his massive resources and wealth.

Later we find out that Solomon accumulated fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses to store in these military basses.  The last time we saw horses and chariots was when we looked over our shoulders as we ran through the red sea while Pharaoh chased us with horse drawn chariots. 

We escaped an empire of bricks, horses and chariots to become a blessing.  But instead we took that blessing and created the very thing we ran from.

Which takes us back to the covenant God gave. “If you obey me fully.”  Here’s the answer to our question.  Did they obey God fully?  No.

What started with fruit led us East of Eden and into slavery in Egypt.  God heard the cries of his people and freed them to Sinai.  He restored his people through the desert and back to the promised land of Jerusalem to become a blessing and instead they became their own Egypt.  This new Egypt and new Pharaoh only leads to one place.  Exile.  Exile is when you forget where you come from.  Exile is not a location but a posture of our soul.  Exile is when you forget that God’s covenant is for his people to be blessed so they can be a blessing. And this is where we meet the prophets, powerful voices who warned of the inevitable consequences of Israel’s infidelity.

God wants to live among the people in the sacred union of the divine and human, but they aren’t interested. “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy (2 Chronicles 36:15-16).”

Amos gets kicked out of the palace, Jeremiah gets beaten up and put in stocks and thrown in a pit, and people don’t change.  They don’t remember Eden, They disregard God’s promise to Abram, they blow off Egypt, and they don’t remember Sinai.  They are too comfortable because this time the empire of bricks has built them the power they are enjoying.  And from atop there thrown of comfort they can’t hear the cries of the oppressed.

Israel has run so far East of Eden and ignored every outstretched arm of grace that they are on their own.  Eventually “the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the LORD’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials.  They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.  He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.”

Everything has fallen apart, the temple is destroyed, many are killed, and those who survive are carried off to a foreign land called Babylon.  Those survivors become servants and servants is just another word for one that has become very familiar in this story, slave.  Are we in Babylon or are we back in Egypt?

What started with fruit led us East of Eden and into slavery in Egypt.  God heard the cries of his people and freed them to Sinai.  He restored his people through the desert and back to the promised land of Jerusalem to become a blessing and instead they became their own empire of bricks.  Jerusalem becomes the new Egypt and Solomon the new Pharaoh.  Military basses, horses, chariots and once again more bricks.  Not obeying God fully leads them back to slavery.  Leads them to Babylon.  Leads them to another Egypt.

The Jewish Scriptures come to a close with a great sense of anticipation, hope and expectancy for the coming Messiah.  He would be the one to put an end to the present age marked by sin, death, Satan, rebellion and exile of Israel and inaugurate the age to come which would be marked by peace, glory, knowledge of the Lord, new covenant, resurrection, pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and restoration of creation.  The Israelite community is scattered.  Some are still in exile and others have made it back to Jerusalem only to find a new empire of bricks run by the Romans.  400 years of silence.  400 years of anticipation.  400 years of expectation for the coming King.  A King of Kings to set up his kingdom on earth here and now.  The Jewish hope was that God himself would intervene- that just as He rescued His people from Egypt through Moses, so He would rescue His people from foreign oppression through the Messiah.  A new king from the line of David, the heir to the throne of Israel, would establish His kingdom, slaughter the occupying army, tear down the pagan shrines, gather the Jews from their dispersion through out the land, cleanse the land, and rebuild Jerusalem.  God himself would come to reign, glorifying his temple and welcoming any Gentiles who sought to love according to His law.  The land would flourish with peace and prosperity. 

It’s written in the book of Exodus that when the Israelites were finally freed from their slavery in Egypt, they had been there four hundred and thirty years.  Which takes us back to Babylon.  The end of the exile could be marked by Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem around 430 BC. 

Four hundred and thirty years in Egypt, and then comes Moses. 

Four hundred and thirty years back home in Jerusalem, but still in some form of exile. 

Four hundred and thirty years hoping that God will restore the kingdom of Israel. 

Four hundred and thirty ears with the boots of the enemy still on their necks. 

And after four hundred and thirty years Jesus is born.

Jesus is born on the outskirts of outskirts to a poor junior high virgin who is engaged to her freshman in high school boyfriend.  Jesus is born in a dirty animal troth in the worst of sanitary conditions.  These conditions and circumstances couldn’t have been further from the Jewish expectations as to who would be heir to the throne of David. 

But Jesus does it.  Where our first father Adam fell short and gave in to sin, Jesus becomes the last Adam and passes the test of temptation in the desert.  In doing so imputed his righteousness to us to overcome the sin imputed to us through the sin of the first Adam.  Jesus is the true and better Able who, although he was innocent, was slain and whose blood cries out for our redemption.  When Isaac carried his own wood and laid down his life to be sacrificed at the hand of his father Abraham, he was showing us what Jesus would later do.  Jesus is the greater Jacob, who wrestled with God in Gethsemane and, though wounded and limping, walked away from his grave blessed.  Jesus is the final Moses, in his death, burial, and resurrection provides for us the final exodus in which we receive the new and permanent covenant from God.  Jesus is the greater Solomon in that he uses his blessings and powers only to bless those around him.

What started with fruit led us East of Eden and into slavery in Egypt.  God heard the cries of his people and freed them to Sinai.  He restored his people through the desert and back to the promised land of Jerusalem to become a blessing and instead they became their own empire of bricks.  Jerusalem becomes the new Egypt and Solomon the new Pharaoh.  Military basses, horses, chariots and once again more bricks.  Not obeying God fully leads them back to slavery.  Leads them to Babylon.  Leads them to another Egypt.  Leads them to a place of oppression and has them once again crying out for help.  This leads us to a little town called Bethlehem where Jesus became a man and entered into human history as the final Moses providing the permanent Exodus through his blood on the cross.

We are given his Spirit and commanded to do his work here and now on earth as we restore all things back to Him. We live in the in between, the radical middle, the space between the first and second coming.  We live in the Now and The Not Yet.  The Kingdom has come but we need to pray for it to come.  It’s in our midst yet it hasn’t fully arrived.  Jesus birth inaugurated the coming of this Kingdom and his second coming will fulfill its power and presence here on earth.  While our feet are firmly planted in the present age of sin and death we are able to reach out and tap into the age to come, tap into the kingdom of God and bring foretastes of his kingdom here and now.

It is our job to remember our story.  To remember where we come from so we won’t make the same mistakes.  So that we can become the people God blesses so that we can in turn become a blessing.  It’s our job to remember that this all started in a garden with some fruit.  And since then has led us East.Of.Eden

-Billy