Genesis 3:8-15 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Third Sunday After Pentecost Sunday, June 9, 2024 “He Will Crush the Serpent’s Head”
Have you ever tried to hide from God? You may not have thought about it that way, but I am guessing you have. Hiding from God looks a lot like hiding from the people around you when you’re doing something you know you should not do. You glance around when you want to steal the cookie out of the cookie jar. You hide in a quiet room when you want to look at or watch something that is inappropriate. Before you gossip about a friend, you double-check that the friend is not within earshot and that no one who might let the message get back to that friend is either. And then you speak or you watch or you take. Now maybe when that is going on, you just don’t think about the fact that even if other people may not see what you are doing, God always sees. But what happens next? Do you, as soon as you think about what you have done in relation to the expectations of your heavenly Father, do you repent? Do you whisper a prayer that acknowledges the sin? “I have sinned against you, Lord. I have done the things that you warn me about.” Or do you just pretend that God’s not going to worry about it? Do you avoid places like church that might bring on feelings of guilt? Do you deny that you have a problem while pointing out everyone else’s struggles, or at least the struggles of those you think are most likely to realize what you have done? Do you just sort of assume that you have gotten away with what you have done? Do you suppose you could come up with a time that you have tried to hide from God? Sinners have been trying to hide from God since the very beginning of sin. Earlier in our service you heard the account of Adam and Eve, the first people, hiding from God after their fall. They were not successful. They learned how futile and foolish it was to hide from God, but then they heard the most amazing promise that God could give them. Our verses begin with the man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, hearing God walking through the garden. The Bible doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what life was like for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but we get the impression that they knew this sound. They may well have been used to walking with God and talking with God. After all, he had created them perfect. The whole garden had been perfect and had met all their needs. They had a perfectly harmonious relationship with each other and with God. But this visit from God was very different. Adam and Eve heard, and they hid. And that is exactly as foolish as it sounds. The almighty God, the all-knowing God, the God who had created them and everything that they had and knew and saw, was coming into the garden, and they hid. My kids are old enough now that this doesn’t really apply, but when they were younger, we played some games of hide-and-seek. The little ones weren’t necessarily the best at hiding. They would laugh or talk or have significant portions visible in spite of their hiding places. I didn’t have any trouble finding them. I didn’t need any special skills or abilities. How much more for God when Adam and Eve hid? But God didn’t say, “There you are” immediately. He called out to Adam and asked, “Where are you?” That’s like me searching for those hiding kids and saying, “I wonder where they could be?” to extend the excitement of the game. But God was not playing a game. God was giving Adam a chance to stop hiding and to come clean about what had happened. What had happened was Adam along with his wife Eve were tempted when Satan in the form of a serpent came to them and told them that it would be OK to eat the fruit of the one tree about which God had told them not to eat. They knew that the whole garden was theirs. There were many fruit trees. They had everything they needed and more. But Satan’s whispers got the better of them. They began to wonder whether God was withholding from them something good. They listened to Satan instead of God, and they ate. And everything changed. Satan had done his worst, and his worst was really bad. Adam and Eve realized to their shame that they were naked. They had never been concerned about it before because their thoughts were pure. No longer. From then on, they did not have their perfect relationship, a point that comes across