Prayer of the Day
Lord God, heavenly Father, You created Adam in Your image and gave him Eve as his helpmate, and after their fall into sin, You promised them a Savior who would crush the devil’s might. By Your mercy, number us among those who have come out of the great tribulation with the seal of the living God on our foreheads and whose robes have been made white in the blood of the Lamb; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Adam was the first man, made in the image of God and given dominion over all the earth (Genesis 1:26). Eve was the first woman, formed from one of Adam’s ribs to be his companion and helper (Genesis 2:18-24). God placed them in the Garden of Eden to take care of creation as His representatives. But they forsook God’s Word and plunged the world into sin (Genesis 3:1-7). For this disobedience, God drove them from the garden. Eve would suffer pain in childbirth and would chafe at her subjection to Adam; Adam would toil amid thorns and thistles and return to the dust of the ground. Yet God promised that the woman’s Seed would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:8-24). Sin had entered God’s perfect creation and changed it until God would restore it again through Christ. Eve is the mother of the human race, while Adam is representative of all humanity and the fall, as the apostle Paul writes, “For in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). (From the LCMS website)
Reflection, by Valerius Herberger (21 April 1562 – 18 May 1627):
In the midst of paradise stands the tree of life. From this, Adam [and Eve were] driven away so that [they] would not eat of it but instead would die according to God’s judgment on account of the sin [they] committed. But the cross of Christ is the noble tree of life on which hangs the noble fruits that bring us eternal life. “No forest produces such foliage, blossoms, sprouts.” Whoever consoles himself with the precious merit of Jesus Christ shall live, even though he die. “And whoever lives and believes in Him shall never die” (John 11:26). Because of their sins, Adam [and Eve and their] children were locked out of paradise, but through the key of the holy cross, it will be opened once again to all repentant Christians. Crux Christi clavis Paradisi, that is, “The cross of Christ is the key of paradise,” says John of Damascus. To this, the fathers of the Church relate the key of the house of David, which can open so that no one can shut [Isaiah 22:22]. Let all evil spirits be defied, who would like to lock heaven to us, which the Lord Jesus opened by His cross and death.
—Valerius Herberger
Tomorrow’s Great O Antiphon is about the Key of David:
O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, You open and no one can close, You close and no one can open: Come and rescue the prisoners who are in darkness and the shadow of death.
Adam and Eve were stopped by the Lord from eating of the tree of eternal life. They were locked out by the Lord. Why? The Lord’s mercy that they would not have to live eternally in sin. Sin locks us out of the Lord’s paradise, being with Him. He alone can open the door and He has…through the door He opened in the conception of His only begotten Son in the womb of the virgin Mary. His forgiveness opens the door as He is the door to eternal life, freed by grace through faith. Jesus is the Adam from heaven to rescue those in the sin of the man of the earth, the first Adam. “The cross of Christ is the key of paradise.”
Hymnody
Glory be to Him who loved us,
Washed us from each spot and stain; Glory be to Him who bought us,
Made us kings with Him to reign! Glory, glory
To the Lamb that once was slain! —Glory Be to God the Father (LSB 506:2)
Concordia and Koinonia 
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