The Commemoration of Adam and Eve, 19 December

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)

Read Full Post »

The Commemoration of Adam and Eve, Wednesday in the 3rd Week in Advent, December 19th, anno Domini 2,012

The Temptation of Eve by Lucas Cranach

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 and Eve

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 changedit 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).

Reflection:  The woodcut above is interesting for this detail:  please note the one woman has a serpent’s tail which Cranach is telling us the devil has become a woman, but not just any woman.  It has become  Eve.  Eve is being tempted by Eve, her own image.  The image of man and woman, created in the image of God is powerful but it was to reflect the Lord’s love and dominion but not him or her self as a self-existing all attractive being.  Romans 1:

¹For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. ²⁴Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Then immediately Paul teaches about homosexual passions:  loving the same and not the other, literally, the “hetero”.  It is easy to love the same.  The Lord loves us, even when Eve bought the damn lie. We live in a society in thralldom to the self, from “Self” magazine to a talk show host who’s magazine only features her every time to the worshiping the stars.  There are only two types of people: self-seekers or Kingdom seekers or  seekers of the Savior.  As the Christmas states it well:  Christ was born for this.  Born into a world in which everyone is looking out for #1 in sheer adulation, He came a mewling baby in a feeding trough, the Son of God.  He came to be last and least of all. The Coming One who sought purely the reign of God for you. Colossians 1:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Read Full Post »

Manchurian Candidates

A couple of  weeks ago I watched again The Manchurian Candidate (1962 Manchurian Candidate synopsis).  I think it is one of the most frightening movies.  It is about a group of American soldiers in the Korean War who are kidnapped and brainwashed by the Communist Chinese and Russians  for a deadly game of American politics during a presidential campaign at the time of the Cold War.  One soldier is brainwashed to kill. 

The soldier(s) had to be first isolated for the deadly “brainwashing” to occur.  The main Chinese operative in the procedure points out that the popular understanding that a person can not kill contrary to his nature is simply not true.  This is a truer understanding of the Old Adam and the corrupt nature of man (see Genesis 6:5;  Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 15:19) than what  is taught and preached  in many churches in our day.

My simple point is this:  they had to be isolated, cut-off for the drawing out of their murderous intent.  Isolation.  About the time I re-watched this movie, Jared Loughner killed in Tucson.  This is one in a deadly string of such killings.  Some go unnoticed because those killed are not famous. Not “every thing that bleeds, leads” in a media story because there is so much blood so shed.  There seems to be a common thread in many of  these killers:  isolation.  As I write this on a blog, the computer/internet can be a source of “social networking” or for utter social isolation.  I am reminded of the verse from Paradise Lost by John Milton:

The mind is it’s own place, and in it self/Can make a Heav’n of Hell and a Hell of Heav’n

This is part of Satan’s address.  The deceiver had to get the woman alone in the Garden to do his perverted will.  The internet can be a perfect tool for such isolation, in front of a screen, selectively feeding our perverse Adamic wills in pornography, violence, and hatred.  But the internet does not kill, people do and Satan finds another way to isolate a fellow fallen son of Adam or daughter of Eve. The apostle Peter cautioned, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5: 8).  From all those National Geographic specials about the Serengetti Plain:  the lion attacks when a member of the herd is off by himself.  The mind “in it self” can so pervert both heaven and hell that there is no distinction.  This is madness.  I understand that much mental illness is caused by biological factors that can be remedied by medication.  But much what goes for mental illness is induced, as in The Manchurian Candidate and feeding the  mind in isolation from a community or a communion.   It is not that there are many “Manchurian candidates” but we are all Manchurian candidates.  Milton was only following the Scriptures.  The only difference between Milton’s day and our own is that people are becoming lost in cyberspace.   Even before the fall, the Lord observed, “ “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2: 18)   It is not good particularly after the fall.  The apostle encourages after 1 Peter 5: 8:  “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.”  In the Beautitudes the Lord is forming by His Call and Election by His Grace, a communion, His Church.  Martin Luther in his Letters of Spiritual Counsel, would encourage those suffering from “melancholia” (i.e. depression) to seek someone or something beyond the self: a walk in the woods, the laughter of a child, etc.  If it is not psychological depression, but sorrow because of sin, confess to hear the Lord’s forgiveness from the Cross.   Seek a pastor, a fellow Christian, His salvation. There is a social network in the world that is Lord’s own forming:  His body, the Church, the net of His Word.    If the devil preys, the Church must ever pray.   His social network is not in cyberspace, but around the corner.

Read Full Post »