The Orphan’s Story

In the name of the F, S, and HS. Amen.
Why did Jesus have to come? Because we cannot do it on our own.

This new year I plan on changing things up a bit. We are going to work our way through the story of the Old Testament. Why do this? Why not just focus on this Gospel and give you all the good news of Jesus Christ, and the salvation from sin? Because it is meaningless to show that our sins are forgiven if we have no sins of which to be forgiven. And more to the point, not only you and the person sitting next to you, but for thousands of years of recorded biblical history, man has found that he cannot do it on his own.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, he formed a garden and he put Adam in it and told him to be fruitful and multiply. Then when he found no fit partner among the created world, God put him into a deep sleep and fashioned Eve and called them into the covenant of marriage together, a marriage in which a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife.

Why did the God add this bit about leaving father and mother and becoming one flesh with his wife on to the end of the creation narrative? It seems as though the story has already reached its climax, Adam was made, searched the entire world and could not find what he was looking for and then God provides it for him and he is exceedingly happy. Roll credits over a happy score; send the people on their way with a good feeling.

God decided rather to comment, a bit cryptically mind you, on the living arrangements of the new happy couple. It is cryptic because who are Adam’s mother and father? Adam is the first man and thus has no father except God and has no mother at all. There must be a theological point that is being made here.

To find the answer to this we look back at the first account of the Creation narrative. There are two accounts present in Genesis, the first being the grand scheme—big, God’s eye view of creation coming together. The second is man’s—he cannot see all that is going on but what happens in front of him.

In the first account, creation is set up like a beautiful Temple. The world was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. The first creation is God giving the earth form and filling the void. There is a parallel to the days. Days 1-3 parallel days 4-6.
Day 1: God creates light and dark—day and night. Day 2: God separates the sky from the sea—the waters from the water (both are blue and it was assumed that the sky was simply a dome that kept the waters above from crashing down on the waters below—hence why the sky is blue).
Day 3: God separates the dry land from the water and creates vegetation.

Now the earth is formed, but remains void, so days 4-6 God fills the void.
Day 4: God fills the void of day 1 by adding a Sun and a Moon—one to rule the day, another to rule the night.
Day 5: God fills the void of day 2 by adding birds and fish—birds to rule the sky and fish to rule the sea.
Day 6: God fills the void of day 6 by adding land animals and bugs (I love the phrasing in the Hebrew: “creeping things that creep on the earth”), essentially these rule the land.
Finally, still on the 6th day, God creates man and he is to rule over the entire thing.

Now the earth has both form and void, and so God rests. God does not rest because he is tired, he rests as an example to man. God rest to show man (collectively) that there is something that is beyond this world. In resting God calls us to his eternally rest. This is why he hallows it—sets it aside for his use.

Now that we have the big picture, the camera cuts to Adam and we get his story from his viewpoint—we back up a day. We see God fashion Adam from the dust of the earth and the breath the first breath—the breath of his life-giving Spirit—into Adam and then the camera cuts to Adam’s view. He opens his eyes with that first breath and the first thing he sees is God.

Then God helps him up and shows him around the garden by beating the bounds. So God sets the boundaries and then gives him a job to do—protect the garden by tilling it and keeping it (this comes into play later so remember it). Then God gives him one rule: “See this tree? This one tree is the only one from which you cannot eat. It is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Look at its branches; see its fruit, and remember. Now, turn and look around. See all the other trees—everything else you find here, you may eat,” and off they go, Adam, and his personal tour guide, God: the creator of the universe.

Then God allows Adam learn something for himself. God says that it is not fit for man to be alone, so God creates animals. This must have been the coolest part of being Adam—hanging out with God as he creates animals. God would make something and hold it up, and Adam would name it and off it would scamper. After God made every animal, Adam still could not find his true helper—not even a dog, which was close, because immediately upon being named, it grabbed the nearest stick and Adam, God, and dog played the first game of fetch.

But when that was finished and the dog lay down beside Adam to chew the stick, Adam still had not found a helper fit for him. He had passed his first test.

So God caused a deep sleep to come upon him and when he woke up God brought forth the jewel of his creation, and asked Adam to name her. This woman (for that is what he named her) was perfect for him. At last he had his perfect helper and they were married on the spot.

Here we have reached our theological point wrapped in the shapely curves of Eve. The point talking about marriage here, about leaving father and mother and cleaving to his wife is the same thing Jesus talks about when the crowd when his family comes to gather him thinking him to be crazy. “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Those who leave their earthly father and mother and participate in the marriage between Christ and his Church, they are the ones who participate in the eternal rest of the seventh day. The saying on marriage is making the same point as the rest—we are called beyond the created world to God Himself and we will find no rest until we realize this.

This is why we are focusing on the story of the Old Testament this year, because it allows us to see over and over again our story for we cannot realize the end without knowing what led up to it.

Countless people have gone before us and we would do well to learn from them, because time and time in the bible, the point is made: God has called us to him, but try as we might, we cannot do it by ourselves. Notice that it is God who provides Eve for Adam, not Adam finding something already in existence. Adam cannot do it by himself.

I recently heard a saying: “He who does not know the story of his past is an orphan.” Beloved, I would not have you be orphans but true children of the Father. And to do this, we must learn our family history.

In the name of the F, S, and HS. Amen.