Banished for Good
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Let’s Pray:
PRAYER
Intro:
In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, there’s a scene towards the end of the movie where Indy has made his way into this inner chamber where the Holy Grail has been hidden for centuries. There an Old Faithful Knight guards the chalice. As the villain of the story enters, he wants the grail because to drink from it would mean eternal life. In front of him are a whole array of different chalices, and he doesn’t know which one it is.
The old Knight says, “You must choose, but choose wisely.”
The villain of the story chooses a chalice and drinks from it only to suffer accelerated aging where in the matter of a few seconds we watch as he becomes and old man, decays to a skeleton, and then collapses and becomes dust. After which the old knight comments with no emotion, “He chose (pause) poorly.”
From the time Humankind entered the Creation narrative it has been about choice. We were given a free will, and early on knowing only the relationship with God it was paradise. Then the tempter came in casting doubt, “Did God really say…? Questioning led to doubting, doubting led to challenging, challenging led to defying, defying led ultimately to death.
First it was the death of animals for the skins to clothe Man and the Woman.
Our Scripture today is the conclusion of life in the Garden and thus the last scripture passage of our series, Creation and Fall. We’re going to be looking at Genesis 3:22-24
Reading from our passage:
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
There is a sadness to this passage, but there is also grace and we’re going to get to that.
The first thing we hear from God in our passage is “Behold, the man has become like one of us...” That was what the serpent tempted Eve with in the first place. “God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” (v. 5).
The serpent was right, their eyes were opened. They did become like God knowing good and evil.
And what happened? Their eyes were opened and suddenly they were ashamed and they hid from one another covering themselves and from God hiding behind some bushes. They did become like God, becoming a creator - a source of life. Becoming alone, living out of their own resources and no longer in need of others, lord of their own world.
The narrator does not tell us anything they had to be ashamed of…well, except for the fact that they ate of the tree they both knew they weren’t supposed to.
God also was right - Humankind is no longer “like God” in that it now lives with enmity between itself and God the life giver. So in choosing to live “their own way” they go seeking life away from the One who gives life which leads them to death.
To quote that old knight, “They chose (pause) poorly.”
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
Here is the quandry: Adam and Eve have become independent of God making themselves judge of God’s Word, thus separating themselves from God. That is separating from the Life Giver. If we are separate from life we are living in death. Yet they remain in the garden until this point. And there at the center of the garden is the tree of life.
In other words they are in a position to keep their dying going on eternally. Eternally living in death.
God’s action then makes sense - separate them from the tree of life - not to keep them from life but to keep them from living in death. To remain in the garden would be to perpetually live in their death. So God drives them out of the garden.
Were they banished from the garden as punishment.
Well…yes. Perhaps better put it was a consequence. If they were going to neglect their duty of tending the garden they would not be a part of it.
Out of the garden they are sent where Adam must not work the ground from which he was taken.
He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
God placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Death has now entered the world. It is something we mourn to this day, and something we do everything in our power, so it seems, to avoid. One of the differences I observed having served churches in urban areas and rural areas is that the rural congregations seem to be much more comfortable with the idea of death.
Viewings are rare in urban settings and open casket funerals are seldom heard of. In the rural communities I’ve served the viewing was more commonplace. In sharing my observation with an old farmer he said, “Well, death is just a part of life. We see it every day in our fields.”
It was evident in the way many of them lived as well. As they approached the end of life they did not fight it the way so many urbanites do. They had their doctors keep them comfortable and they.
The Bible tells us plainly:
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Just as life has always been through relationship with God. Jesus opens the way to eternal life:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Jesus is the way. The veil was torn at his death, and we once again have an opportunity to enter into eternal life with God.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
As the hero and villain in the movie, The Last Crusade” who had dozens of chalices to choose from, we have dozens of choices we make every day.
Will you choose (pause) wisely?
OR
Will you choose (pause) poorly?
I’m always open to speak with you about the choices you are making in your life.