Tending the garden
This week is on Genesis 2:7-17:
It's nice to return back to the beginning from time to time and see how things started. In these verses we have a quick glimpse of man's first encounters with God. We forget that God and man knew each other from the beginning. It's not like eternity was some kind of Junior High dance where God was on one side of the room and man on the other, and ages passed before they shared words. Right from the moment man was created, he knew God.
Man was nothing but dirt until God breathed his spirit into him and brought him to life. He breathed his breath into our nostrils. Our beginning probably looked like a resuscitation. But what a great start! Can you think of a more intimate first moment of life than to be breathed to life intentionally by the creator of the universe himself?
God literally creates a universe for us. He creates an orchard out of nothing, inventing all sorts of trees, including ones no biologist has ever seen in this world. Mighty rivers flow and there are precious stones. And he places the man, Adam, us, in the midst of the orchard to tend it. We're part of his plan, an act of his creation and an essential component.
Was God unable to do his own landscaping? Obviously not, if he'd just created everything in the first place. But he wanted us there, somehow, so that's where he put us. It's a common theme throughout history, and I don't know if anyone can really explain it. Adam and Eve tended the orchard in Eden. Moses tended the Israelites, as did various judges and kings after him. Jesus tended his disciples. Peter tended them afterwards, as do we today in various forms of church. It's not really a new command, is it? "Look after what I've created, and participate in it. Appreciate me and what I have done."
But God doesn't just give us work and leave us. He intervenes and warns us away from what is bad, while offering us what is good. "Freely enjoy all of these trees I've created for you. See what great rewards your labor produces in my world I created for you. Just don't get involved with this thing that will destroy you and break both of our hearts if you taste it." We see that consistently throughout history. God brings wonderful things into our lives, and warns us of danger, and then we ignore it and suffer.
Next time you're given responsibility of something living, like a plant, or a cat, or a family, or a team, or a church, or maybe even a nation, think of the beginning, when Adam was placed into the orchard in Eden and asked to care for it. It's no accident that we find ourselves so often in that situation. Look at it as a chance to participate in creation, commune with God, and learn something about how God values you.
The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.)
Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams. The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there). The name of the second river is Gihon; it runs through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it. Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”
It's nice to return back to the beginning from time to time and see how things started. In these verses we have a quick glimpse of man's first encounters with God. We forget that God and man knew each other from the beginning. It's not like eternity was some kind of Junior High dance where God was on one side of the room and man on the other, and ages passed before they shared words. Right from the moment man was created, he knew God.
Man was nothing but dirt until God breathed his spirit into him and brought him to life. He breathed his breath into our nostrils. Our beginning probably looked like a resuscitation. But what a great start! Can you think of a more intimate first moment of life than to be breathed to life intentionally by the creator of the universe himself?
God literally creates a universe for us. He creates an orchard out of nothing, inventing all sorts of trees, including ones no biologist has ever seen in this world. Mighty rivers flow and there are precious stones. And he places the man, Adam, us, in the midst of the orchard to tend it. We're part of his plan, an act of his creation and an essential component.
Was God unable to do his own landscaping? Obviously not, if he'd just created everything in the first place. But he wanted us there, somehow, so that's where he put us. It's a common theme throughout history, and I don't know if anyone can really explain it. Adam and Eve tended the orchard in Eden. Moses tended the Israelites, as did various judges and kings after him. Jesus tended his disciples. Peter tended them afterwards, as do we today in various forms of church. It's not really a new command, is it? "Look after what I've created, and participate in it. Appreciate me and what I have done."
But God doesn't just give us work and leave us. He intervenes and warns us away from what is bad, while offering us what is good. "Freely enjoy all of these trees I've created for you. See what great rewards your labor produces in my world I created for you. Just don't get involved with this thing that will destroy you and break both of our hearts if you taste it." We see that consistently throughout history. God brings wonderful things into our lives, and warns us of danger, and then we ignore it and suffer.
Next time you're given responsibility of something living, like a plant, or a cat, or a family, or a team, or a church, or maybe even a nation, think of the beginning, when Adam was placed into the orchard in Eden and asked to care for it. It's no accident that we find ourselves so often in that situation. Look at it as a chance to participate in creation, commune with God, and learn something about how God values you.
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