telling the story ~ mercy awakens
Composition version: yes.
lyrics
mercy awakens
searching the garden
cool of the day
mercy awakens
echoes of God with
something to say
seed for the woman
skin for a covering
for man much afraid
hope for a future
truth love and beauty
the promise is made
mercy awakened:
awaken me
narrative
Although Adam and Eve's sin struck at the very foundations of the relationship between God and man, God did indeed respond in mercy. Rather than striking down His creatures, He came into the Garden with questions.
Why questions? Because He wasn't sure what happened? Not at all. But just as a parent may sometimes question her child regarding something she just witnessed ("What did you just do? Why did you do that?"), so God shows Himself to be a seeker - a seeker of His creatures. By asking, "Adam, where are you?" and the other questions he makes on this occasion, He seeks to draw out a confession of sin, an acknowledgment.
Again, why? Because He is morbid and likes to dwell on negative things? Again, no. But because sin and guilt are real and need to be dealt with. There are things that should not be covered over and ignored, because as long as they are not faced, there is no moving on. So God brings the man and the woman face to face with what they have done, not out of spite, but because He is about to provide a way for them to move on.
As God had warned, eating of the forbidden tree brings death. But that is not God's only word to Adam and Eve. With Eve, for instance, God says that childbearing and childrearing will now be painful and arduous - but we should not overlook the fact that from the beginning, childbearing was a blessing. What this means is that God is still granting blessing.
Something similar could be said regarding Adam: God says that now he will eat his bread in the sweat of his brow all the days of his life. That mention of toil and sweat should not make us miss the fact that here God says that Adam will indeed eat. And beyond that, he and Eve still do have life in front of them.
God's warning of death came true in several respects:
- Eventually, Adam and Eve both died physically.
- The perfect physical life Adam and Eve initially enjoyed was lost immediately.
- The immediate result of the fall was a dislocation of the perfect communion between the life-giving God and human beings.
The story as it develops from here on out must now deal with these things. Why? Because God here says that human beings will triumph over the serpent. If these forms of death have the last word, then the serpent has permanently defeated the human race. In a way, one could say that in that case, the serpent has permanently defeated God, whose original purpose for His creation has been thwarted.
But that is impossible. The Almighty God cannot go down in defeat to the deceitful schemer. Although He casts Adam and Eve out of the Garden, He immediately begins the restoration of fellowship between fallen humans and Himself - which is seen initially in the slaughter of an animal so that they can be clothed with skins. You may have heard of a biblical word called atonement. This word literally means covering. The idea with covering is that God covers human sin; in addition, clothing signifies glory and authority (think of the robes of a king or a judge). Even though Adam and Eve were not ready to be kings, judging good and evil, yet God gives them robes; He equips them in some small measure to be what they cannot make themselves adequate for.
Mercy awakens.