Monday, April 7, 2014
Genesis 3:17-18 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you."
THE CURSE REMOVED
It's been a long winter for those living in many parts of our country. It may be hard to believe but Spring officially began on the calendar over two weeks ago. Something many will be thinking about now (at least, those blessed to have green thumbs) is planting vegetable gardens so later on they'll be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors, things like fresh tomatoes, green peppers, and crunchy carrots.
Vegetable gardens are nice to have for those who have the knack for that kind of thing. But as we all know, once you plant a garden you need to keep it weeded. A garden left untended will soon be taken over by weeds. It can become so thick with weeds that the good plants are ruined and rendered unable to produce a crop.
It wasn't always that way. When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in Eden they didn't even have to think about weeding. All plants and flowers grew up naturally green and gorgeous. All vegetable plants yielded bumper crops. But when Adam listened to Eve and ate from the tree about which the Lord commanded them not to eat everything changed. The ground was cursed and started producing weeds.
And more than weeds began to grow. Sin sprang up and along with sin, things like pain and suffering, God's righteous anger over sin, and the wages for sin, death. These were the "thistles" that grew like gangbusters, threatening to completely smother forever the life of peace and joy our God intended for us.
During the Lenten season we are privileged to meditate on the story of what our loving God did to rid our garden of life of all those nasty weeds. He had His Son become one of us and allowed Him to be choked out by them, that we might be enjoy once again the gift of perfect peace and happiness with our God forever.
Believing, we rejoice To see the curse remove;
We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice And sing His bleeding love.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 156:5)
