Echoes of Eden



This sermon is the last one in the series considering chapters 1-3 of Genesis. Is the Garden of Eden just a fairy tale... or might it be the symbol of one of our deepest longings? When I preached this sermon in church, it resonated with a number of people who heard it. Maybe it will touch something in you, as well.

 

Over the last several weeks, we have considered the creation stories that are told in Genesis. We have watched in wonder as God spoke the universe into being, carved out a space for us to live, and created humanity in his own image. We have listened to God tell us that our job is to “till and keep” the earth; and pondered the relationship between man and woman, the partner who “corresponds to him.” We watched those first humans eating the forbidden fruit as they tried to improve their status to be “like gods;” and saw the disastrous consequences of that action. This morning appears to be the end of that story. God has expelled those human beings from the Garden of Eden to make their own way in a hostile world.

But… is it really the end of the story? Actually, it is only the beginning of a long story that isn’t even finished yet. It began in hope as two children, Cain and Abel, were born. It continued with God choosing Abraham and Sarah to be the parents of God’s special people; and liberating their descendents from Egypt in a great Exodus. Those people were gifted with a land and leaders – some wise, others not so wise. When those people were conquered and dragged away in Babylon because of their foolishness, God stayed with them, and brought them back to their homeland once again.

But throughout the whole story, God’s people knew that they weren’t really where they belonged. Their homeland of Israel was only just a taste of their real home. Every now and then, one of the prophets talked about it. Isaiah described a place where there will be no more tears, no more death, and abundance for all; a place where the lion will lie down with the lamb, and humans will be reconciled with all creation. We know about that place, too. It’s the place where we want to be; the home that is so deep inside us that we’ve all yearned for it at one time or another.

C.S. Lewis, 20^th century essayist and novelist, tried to describe it:

“[There is] something that you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires… night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for…. You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should ever really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt, you would say, ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’ It is… the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is.”

Yes, our deepest desire is to be where we belong. And when we hear faint echoes of that place, we know it! We’ve all felt those echoes in one way or another. Some of us feel them best in nature when we see a sunset, a rainbow, one drop of dew on the red velvet of a rose. Others feel them through great art or music – the tragic grace of Michelangelo’s Pieta sculpture, perhaps; or the magnificent chords of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony. Most of us feel them in the profound silence of a cathedral. Surely, we feel them when we are gathered as the Body of Christ, worshipping and fellowshipping together as an extended family. And whether you believe that the Garden of Eden was a real, physical place that existed one historical day long ago; or whether you believe that the Garden is a symbol for a world uncorrupted by sin – it comes to the same thing. We all yearn for our world as we know it should be, but isn’t. The world that should be is our real home.

The way that we get to that world is through Jesus Christ. That’s why the Messiah came, after all – to get us back where we belong. We can’t get there by ourselves, no matter how hard we try. We need a whole lot of help to get back home. Jesus’ entire life was devoted to showing us what that home looks like, and helping us to get back there. He was born in a stable to show us that the status we yearn for so deeply isn’t really important after all. He showed us through his life of love and compassion what life in our true home will be like. Because we human beings didn’t believe him, and preferred to cling to power and status, he died on a cross. But he rose on Easter morning to gift us with the home that we lost – home right now through our relationship with him, and the promise of home forever on one day yet to come.

You see, when we live with Jesus and in Jesus, we are back in the Garden again. It started with Mary Magdalene on Easter morning when Jesus called her name – “Mary.” Jesus calls each one of us, too, by name, and invites us back into the Garden that is really a foretaste of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. That’s what heaven really is – the home that we thought was lost, restored to us again. The good news is that we’re going there one day when our lives are over. The better news is that we can glimpse it right now when we live in fellowship with Jesus Christ. When we pray, meditate, or do works of mercy and compassion in Jesus’ name, we slip away, even if ever so briefly, into our true home.

Echoes of Eden are really whispers of Heaven. We can already hear them, through the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, and the working of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God that through Jesus’ living presence, we are home already. And thanks be to God that through Jesus’ resurrection, we will one day be home forever, never to leave again.