“Christ For Us”
Genesis 3:8-15
Pastor Nate Walther
Last month we celebrated the 100th anniversary of this congregation. This month we are celebrating another anniversary, an even lengthier one at that: the Dodransbicentennial of our Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod – i.e. the 175th Anniversary of our Lutheran Church body here in America. That’s kind of remarkable, and it gets me thinking about why our collection of churches has lasted. Is it truly phenomenal preaching? (All us pastors think we’re good preachers… but such longevity makes me wonder whether I’d make the cut!) Or is it having a good, Christian day schools? (Historically, that’s been a staple of our church body, and we are certainly no exception.) Or what kinds of programs and ministries does a church offer? Or what kind of a difference are churches actually making in the lives of their parishioners?
Initially, our sermon text may not seem to answer those questions or have anything to do with the topic, but it really does get at the heart of the matter. You may know the background. When God first created Adam & Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, he gave them one command, “Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good & evil.” Yet they ate from it. And it may not seem like a big deal, it’s just one tiny act of disobedience. Yet there’s no denying the results
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they HID from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Immediately it’s clear something is wrong. Never before did Adam & Eve have reason to hide from God, but now something has separated them from God. So, 9 The Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” As if God didn’t know! 10 (Adam) answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was NAKED; so I hid.” That’s a sign that something is wrong also. God made Adam and Eve perfectly in his image, and how could anything that ourperfect Lordcreates elicit shame? Unless, Adam & Eve’s bodies somehow had been corrupted and changed into something less… and they were. 11 (God) said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” That would be disobedience to God’s expressed will. That, by its very definition in the Bible, is sin. Sadly, it’s not hard to see their sin in what follows: 12 The man said, “The WOMAN you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Instead of accepting responsibility for his action, Adam deflected blame to his wife and even to God, if you noticed! Likewise, Eve followed her husband’s lead: 13 The Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” As they point the finger at each other, it’s just an ugly attitude, it’s never what God intended…
And that’s just the start of it. In the verses immediately after these God shares that their sin would result in pain: 1) physical pain, like a woman’s pain in childbirth or a man’s painful labor; 2) emotional pain too, of the sort you see that divides families and destroys relationships; 3) finally, there’s the pain of mortality, there’s just nothing as bad as what you find at a gravesite… Speaking of which, in the chapter immediately after this we meet the world’s very first children, Cain & Abel. What happens to them? One of them kills his brother! How serious was their problem with sin if this is what was happening only one generation after God made everything perfectly!?… But the worst part? These aren’t just empty threats or idle warning for us. This is real for us too. This is exactly what we see in our world also. This is sin we are complicit in as well.
We may try to tell ourselves this story doesn’t really apply to our lives: “Some of what the Bible says is old fashioned!” Or we may try to rationalize our sin: “A little disobedience isn’t a big deal, it didn’t hurt anyone!” Or we may point the finger: “It’s the people around me who made me to do this, and they’ve done much worse!…” What we cannot deny is that sin is simply alive & active in our lives. It’s there in every awful word we let slip out of our mouths that we immediately wish we could take back. It’s there in the terrible things we’ve done that we wish we could just scrub from the pasts. It’s there in the pain we suffer in our own bodies, more and more so every year. It’s there in the horrible ways that people have treated us, that we just can’t forget. It’s there in the depravity we all see on the news or on social media, there’s always something worse! Even when we try our best to live a good life and do what’s right and push through all of this, still we mess up, still bad things happen to us, still we die… Yet how often do we go to church for something less? “Don’t actually fix my sins, Lord, or the sins of others! Don’t concern yourself with this eternal chasm that would forever separate us from the good and perfect things you want us to have!… Don’t worry about it because I don’t really want to address this dreary topic, not when it would mean actually confronting my sins, and confessing them, and repenting of them, and changing my life. Instead, just give me a little less pain on this earth, a little more money in my bank account, a few less problems to deal with – a little more recognition for my (mostly) good deeds – that’s all I’m asking!…” As if that’s gonna cut it in the end! We’re as shallow as Adam & Eve pointing the finger at each other.
But God wasn’t shallow. Think about God’s immediate reaction to sin. It wasn’t just to smite Adam & Eve (or you & me) for ruining his perfect plans. Nor was it to give us all the things we’d like to distract us from the real problems in our soul, but which wouldn’t matter when we’re gone in 175 years (if they even matter next year). It wasn’t even to spell out all the consequences for their actions (that was important and it needed to be dealt with, but that would come later, only after our sermon text). Instead, immediately,
14 the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!—That being Satan, who had taken the form of a snake. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring—that being unbelievers—and hers… HE—that being an individual among Eve’s offspring—will CRUSH your head, and you will crush his heel…”
With anniversaries, we sometimes use Latin phrases to highlight their significance. In a similar manner, theologians call this promise from God the protoevangelium – “the first promise” – first because this great promise that would be repeated many times. Just as the Bible highlights man’s sin one generation after another, God promised this same solution to sin again and again: A descendant from Eve’s own line to crush Satan’s head. It’s a picture of totally destroying the evil work of sin that the devil helped introduce into the world. In the process this figure would be wounded – his heel would be crushed – but of course, that’s not a mortal blow… It’s exactly what we see in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who also took on human flesh as a descendant of Eve, who lived a perfect life without sin as our substitute, who could therefore overcome this work of the devil on the cross. Granted, Jesus was killed in the process, but it would be no mortal wound. Jesus rose on Easter morning, and he promises the same final victory for us over sin’s worst consequence.
It’s the last thing Satan wants us to know, so with one last lie he tries to get even Christians distracted, and he succeeds in many churches! Oh, he’ll give us Christ, sure, he knows he can’t take that from Christians… but it’s not as we really need Jesus: as a Savior from sin. Instead, Satan will give us Jesus as a cheerleader, or Jesus as an example for us to follow as we do our best, or Jesus as someone who will make your life better on earth as you follow him – all without pressing on the more pressing matters of sin and salvation.
But God doesn’t get distracted. Right from the start, God was ready with something better: CHRIST FOR US. Christ taking our place as a man himself, but doing what we could not do ourselves: a life of perfect obedience without sin, then his work on the cross to crush this work of Satan. That’s what our brand of Lutheranism is all about. Not empty promises that can never be certain in a fallen world, nor happy thoughts that simply ignore the reality of sin, just a real Savior with a real solution to the very real effect of sin that we see around us. Thank God for 175 years of that message, and 100 years of it personally as a congregation. Finally, that’s what truly phenomenal preaching, and a truly good Christian school, and truly fantastic programs boil down to: not distractions, just the cross. It’s not about what we do, but about what Jesus has already done.
So if you happen to be new here, if you’re looking for a church home to truly settle into, if you’re not sure who would do your funeral when you die… this is what we’re about and this is what we offer. Talk to us pastors about how we can get you more connected to Christ. No, I can’t fix all the problems in your life, but I can point you to the one who fixes your soul, and that will help with everything else. On the other hand, if you have been here a long time, if this was your grandparents’ church, if you’ll be in that pew until you die… don’t forget this is what we’re still about and this is what we always offer. Finally, Eastside Lutheran isn’t about this building or that school; it’s not defined by an excellent June Jumble Days or an Arts & Craft Fair; we don’t go here because our family has always gone here or our friends go here now. There may be blessings in these things, but in a far greater way Eastside Lutheran is about CHRIST FOR US. As we enter our second hundred years as a congregation, and as we march toward two hundred years as a synod, we should keep asking what we can do to further that mission. You’ll hear more about that next week as we continue this celebration and see that Christ doesn’t just work for us… he works for others too. But as he does so, that’s where he graciously chooses to work THROUGH us. Amen.
