Genesis 3:1-15
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the coolof the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen. Today, we are beginning our series on the windows, the stained glass windows of our church. So I figured I'd get started with an overview many of us, these windows sort of fade into the background, and they just become a part of the scenery. They're here and beautiful, but you don't really notice them. So I'm willing to bet most of you don't know exactly what they depict. So we're going to do an overview today. Our windows are divided into two different kinds. Some of them are scenes, and the others are symbols, or what they called theme Windows starting from the back, right over there, you can see the first window is the scene of Bethlehem. There's some roofs of a town, and then the night sky, and with a star right up above that is Bethlehem, the city where Jesus was born. Next to that is a symbol well known. It is the birth of Christ. You can see the manger, and there's a little child's body with his head, and then the halo that marks the sacred Son of God. Right after that is the Jordan River. That is the scene where Jesus was baptized and began his public ministry, the one with the cross and the Bible represents Jesus's ministry of preaching. This is when he went out into all of the regions of Galilee and beyond, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. Next that, you see some rocks and a tree that is Golgotha, the place of the skull where they crucified Jesus. Then is a cross with a crown of thorns. This represents Jesus's crucifixion. Next to that is the Sea of Galilee. You can see the blue water. And then there is a boat of brown and a sail made out of gray with the sun coming up. That is the site of many of Jesus's miracles and much of his ministry. The lily, the Easter Lily, is a symbol for Jesus's resurrection. And then right next to that is the holy city of Jerusalem coming down from heaven like a bride ready for a groom, symbolizing the coming of our eternal life on the last day from Revelation, chapter 21 now if you switch to the other side, starting all the way up in The front, we have the Garden of Eden. There is a tree with a number of trees in the background are the explanation does not tell us whether this is a particular tree or not, but it is the Garden of Eden. Right next to that is the symbol for God the Father. The Hand of God is commonly the way they depict God, the Father. You can see it is His power and His might the right hand of God. This hand is in the form of a blessing. You can see there are three fingers pointed up and two fingers pointed down. If you notice, that is the hand sign I use when I bless you. The three fingers pointed up represent the Trinity Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the two that are down are the two natures of Jesus Christ, both God and man. The scene with the shepherd's crook are the grazing lands of Palestine. They help us to see that Christ is the Good Shepherd and reflect Psalm 23 the next theme window is the cross with crown. This is God, the Son, representing Jesus Christ and His His death on the cross and the crowning that happened there as he was raised onto a throne, not of gold, but of wood. Next to that is the wilderness where Christ resisted temptation. After that is the Holy Spirit, where we see as a dove that came down on our Savior when he was baptized. After that is the river and the tree of life from Revelation chapter 22 in the center of the city of the New Jerusalem is a river of life and the Tree of Life in. The triangle is the Holy Trinity, representing our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three and yet one. And the final window is heaven, the holy place. And last, of course, but not least, is the largest of our stained glass windows, which is behind the central doors. You can better see it on your way out, where we see the cross of Christ and the means of grace, baptism, God's word and Holy Communion. Over the next few weeks, we are going to take these windows individually, culminating with that final window in the back. Today we're taking a look at two of them together, the Garden of Eden all the way in the front on this side, and the hand of the Father over against the cross. So like I said, we don't know what tree is represented there in the Garden of Eden, whether it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life, or any random tree. We just know that that represents the scene of God's creation and his goodness. God, the Father, made the Garden of Eden and the two humans that he put in it, and it was a perfect place for his people. They were provided with every need, everything that they could possibly want. It was beautiful. The father then is represented by that symbol of the hand up against a cross, a hand of blessing, and that blessing is there with the cross, because it's only by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that the Father's hand is blessing and not judgment. And we can see this in the comparison of the trees that I think are the most important trees in all of Holy Scripture, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden and the tree of the cross on which Christ died. There is a prayer that we often pray in in the season of Lent that helps us to see how these two trees are so important in our life. In Christ, this prayer goes, it is truly good, right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you holy Lord, Almighty Father everlasting God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who accomplished the salvation of mankind by the tree of the cross, that where death arose, their life also might rise again, and that the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome. This prayer helps us to compare these two trees. That the tree in the garden of Eden was the place where the serpent won a battle, and the tree of the cross is where Jesus Christ won the war and delivered us eternal life, that from the fruit of that tree we may live forever. So I'd like to take a look at this tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it begins with a well known story of temptation. God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect garden. Food was all around them. Their only job was to take care of this place that was so wonderful and magnificent, so innocent that they didn't even know that they were naked. They had no cares, no concerns. God took care of everything. And when we look at the Garden of Eden and this temptation story, we often want to talk about placing ourselves in this and what lessons can we learn about temptation, what lessons can we learn about sin? But it's not just that. What we see is the beginning of a conflict between Satan and God over humanity, because the serpent comes in, not just as a tempter, but as an enemy, a rebel trying to take God's creation away from him, trying to claim us as his own.
And this war begins with a serpent going to the woman. And offering this well known temptation. We're not going to rehearse the whole story, but one thing I want to point out is something I think is interesting in verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired, to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. It's interesting to me that the Bible describes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as something beautiful. It is a wonderful tree, a part of God's good creation. The food looked delicious and tasty, and it was part of making things, making Adam and Eve wise, what Satan did was he took part of God's amazing creation in this beautiful garden, and he wanted to twist it for his own use, to turn us away from a God who loves us, an almighty Father who gives us life, and by eating the fruit of that tree, Adam and Eve brought sin and death into the world. This beautiful garden where nothing was wrong, where they had everything they could possibly want, brought about the worst things, sin and death in our lives. And yet, God offered a promise, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is the promise of a coming Savior who would defeat the enemy, the serpent, destroy his power and give God's people eternal life. Let's compare that, that scene of beauty and perfection and wonder turned to death and sin with the scene that we see Jesus in on his journey to the cross. In Matthew chapter four, we see a different kind of temptation. Satan uses the same playbook that's all he knows, headlong run into the guy and give temptation. But where is Jesus in a wilderness, no trees, no fruit, nothing to provide for him. He has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is hungry, alone in this terrible place, and Satan does his old game, no trick plays. He uses the goodness of God's creation and tries to tempt Jesus with it, with food, with God's protection and Christ's reign and rule over all the earth. He attempts to tempt our Savior, but Jesus, without all of the things that Adam and Eve had on their side, he defeats Satan in the wilderness. And then he goes to another tree, to the tree of the cross. Now this tree is not beautiful. This tree is ugly and terrible. It is not like the sanded down wooden crosses that we have, or the golden ones that sit in the front of sanctuaries. This is a rough cross filled with splinters threatening death. Its leaves are not green. Its leaves are nails, and its fruit a crown of thorns. It is horrifying. It is death. But the amazing thing is that this terrible, sad, excruciatingly miserable image of a man nailed to a cross is the death that brings about life. This is how Jesus crushed the head of that old serpent. This is how our Savior defeated the enemy Satan, not with something beautiful, not with an amazing new tree, but with something horrible, a death on a cross. That tree is now the tree of life. That tree is what won us the victory over sin, death and the devil, and gives all of us life everlasting. And it's the fruit of that tree given to us in the church that makes us steadfast and faithful and feeds us on this journey toward that everlasting life that we receive here in worship. This is why we can have a hand up there in blessing. This is why the Father is not in a fist, one of judgment and pain, why he does not threaten to kill us and drive us from His paradise. He can put his hand up in blessing, because it's on the cross that Jesus won us this blessing and gave us life. That is why Christians have, for centuries, centuries, used the crucifix as the image of salvation, not an empty cross, but a cross with a Savior who died there. Because it's not a defeat, it is a victory. It is not shame. It is glory. It is the tree of life that our Savior erected for us that we might live forever. It's the reason we can have life forever, and the Satan is defeated in Jesus name, amen. Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Find us on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.