READING: GENESIS 1-3, JOHN 1
In the beginning of the earth and all its creation, God reveals the Trinity - the different but unified persons of God - through the making of man. And man is made in the image of the Trinity. What does that mean? It means that we, as flesh and human body, are not simply limited to that flesh. We have aspects of the Creator in us. We have aspects of the Holy Spirit in us. We have aspects of Jesus - the light for sinners and the truth for those seeking - in us.
So when God asks Adam "Where are you?" after he and Eve first disobeyed God, I almost hear a cry in His voice. Almost as if He's not necessarily asking where they are physically, but where are they (in heart and mind) in this part in their lives that they would abandon the heart of God, the creative, truthful, light-bearing and godly spirited people they were meant to be? Where are they that they would desire to forsake their original intent? What would possess them to do that? I would cry, too.
The whole scenario makes Jesus' coming to earth in physical, fleshly form all the more needed and loving. He was there in the beginning when Adam and Eve were first created. He was there as the word, He was there as the truth, but so far he was light and truth and word in a world yet unblemished. When humans stepped on the scene, when the desires from the flesh of man overcame their delight in this truth of God, then the original intent of Creation got messed up. Man now knew the ugly side of things. Man now dealt with pain. Man now had to hide from God, who took so much delight in creating them. So Jesus took the truth a step further. Instead of just shouting truth and reconciliation for this messy man from a distance in the heavens, instead of just watching over us from perfection and telling us how bad humans messed it up, he chose to take on that same, tempting human form. He chose to step into the imperfections of what man did. He chose to know the pain and the shame of the earth, of the creation gone wrong, and he chose to know it first hand. And when he came to all that, he did not simply tell us what we were doing wrong. Rather, he demonstrated to us how to get away from the wrong, how to be saved from it. He showed us that he made us in the first place, and he's the only one who can bring us back to that "first place". But how? How does he bring us back?
In the garden of Eden, the first animal was killed. It was killed to make clothes. The clothes were made to cover Adam and Eve. Clothes from the skin of the death of an animal, a death that should not have taken place but had to take place so Adam and Eve would not feel ashamed and would not have to hide from God. In Jesus' physical presence on earth, he is referred by John as the "Lamb of God". We know what he came to do. He came to be a death that should not have taken place so that we don't have to feel ashamed, so that we don't have to hide from God. So that we would come to know the very good in our Creator just as he knows the very good in us.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them... And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
So when God asks Adam "Where are you?" after he and Eve first disobeyed God, I almost hear a cry in His voice. Almost as if He's not necessarily asking where they are physically, but where are they (in heart and mind) in this part in their lives that they would abandon the heart of God, the creative, truthful, light-bearing and godly spirited people they were meant to be? Where are they that they would desire to forsake their original intent? What would possess them to do that? I would cry, too.
The whole scenario makes Jesus' coming to earth in physical, fleshly form all the more needed and loving. He was there in the beginning when Adam and Eve were first created. He was there as the word, He was there as the truth, but so far he was light and truth and word in a world yet unblemished. When humans stepped on the scene, when the desires from the flesh of man overcame their delight in this truth of God, then the original intent of Creation got messed up. Man now knew the ugly side of things. Man now dealt with pain. Man now had to hide from God, who took so much delight in creating them. So Jesus took the truth a step further. Instead of just shouting truth and reconciliation for this messy man from a distance in the heavens, instead of just watching over us from perfection and telling us how bad humans messed it up, he chose to take on that same, tempting human form. He chose to step into the imperfections of what man did. He chose to know the pain and the shame of the earth, of the creation gone wrong, and he chose to know it first hand. And when he came to all that, he did not simply tell us what we were doing wrong. Rather, he demonstrated to us how to get away from the wrong, how to be saved from it. He showed us that he made us in the first place, and he's the only one who can bring us back to that "first place". But how? How does he bring us back?
In the garden of Eden, the first animal was killed. It was killed to make clothes. The clothes were made to cover Adam and Eve. Clothes from the skin of the death of an animal, a death that should not have taken place but had to take place so Adam and Eve would not feel ashamed and would not have to hide from God. In Jesus' physical presence on earth, he is referred by John as the "Lamb of God". We know what he came to do. He came to be a death that should not have taken place so that we don't have to feel ashamed, so that we don't have to hide from God. So that we would come to know the very good in our Creator just as he knows the very good in us.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them... And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."