Stephen
Terry, Director
Death
in a Sinful World
Commentary
for the October 8, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
“As long as the earth
endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night
will never cease.” Genesis 8:22, NIV
As I am writing this sabbath
school lesson commentary, it is the fall of the year. The lovely verdure of the
summer is giving way to the vivid colors of autumn. In the spring, I rejoice at
the new leaves and flowers that come forth after living with the stark forms
and naked branches of the trees through winter. But my heart rejoices as well
when the colors of fall shine brilliantly beneath a blue sky. The trees are
saying, “Yes, winter is coming, but we want to give you a show that you will
not forget, a show that will carry you through the long and dark months of
darkness and cold.”
I sometimes wonder if this is
how our own death may appear to God. A Psalmist wrote “Precious in the sight of
the Lord is the death of his faithful servants.”[i] I
have seen those who have trusted in God their entire lives pass to their death with
a peace that escapes others. There is no grasping for more life for fear of
what may come. There is simply an entering into a peaceful rest to await the
Lord’s return. In some ways, these deaths mirror the promise of the fall, a
promise of new life to come despite the present sorrow. The sadness we feel
over the separation does not escape God’s notice. He is not unmoved. Even Jesus
wept at the death of his dear friend Lazarus, though he knew he would soon be
raising him to life again.[ii]
Some believe that God takes some perverse delight in our deaths as a
retribution for our rebellion against our Creator. But his love for us is such
that he would rather die in the person of Jesus than to see us die. We were
created in that image, the image of love.[iii] But
sadly, that image has been effaced over time. The Bible tells the story of how
that process began and how it broke the heart of God in the first few chapters
of Genesis.
God created humanity in his own
loving image and placed them in paradise, the Garden of Eden. There they would
walk with God through the garden and the hearts of both God and man found joy
in the closeness of their relationship. We are not told how long this closeness
lasted but at some point, rebellion, led by Satan, broke out in heaven, leading
a third of the angelic host astray.[iv]
They were cast to the earth, and it was here that Satan continued his rebellion
as he sought to subvert the relationship between humanity and God. God knew
that love cannot exist in a dictatorship. People must have a choice to love or
not, or else they are simply sycophants, feigning love for their own advantage.
To that end, God provided for choice with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil. Satan then began to use that choice to hurt the one who had cast him from
heaven. He used the same tool he used with the angels of heaven. He lied.
Adam and Eve had never been lied
to. Satan had invented the idea of lying. That is why Jesus called him the
father of the lie.[v] This means that all,
regardless of their station in life, who choose to live by the lie are his
children. When Satan appeared to Eve at the tree, he boldly lied to her,
declaring by implication, it was God who had lied to them. If they would trust
his counsel instead of God’s, they would not die, but would instead become like
gods. They were naïve in so many ways. Death and the processes of aging and
decay were unknown to them. However, they are familiar to us. I wonder if we
would have fared better at that tree, but then, the fall occasioned there is so
much a part of our nature now, we cannot undo what was done, we can only hope
for a promised restoration. Nonetheless, in a sense, we are at that tree every
day. For God has promised restored life, and each day Satan tells us it is all
a lie, a fabrication, and we should trust him instead. We will die, but not
“surely.” He says, “We don’t need God.” He told us that at that tree, we became
our own gods, embarking on a process that would ensure divinity for all. That
lie worked well in Eden, and it still entices today. If we are gods as Satan
says, then what is God? He is only us in fancy dress.
As gods, we worship ourselves
and no sacrifice is too great to be made to honor us. While the wretched and
poor eke out an existence and frequently die long before their natural time, we
ride upon the high places of the earth, spending small fortunes to gratify our
desire to be godlike in our knowledge and experiences. No hovels with dirt
floors for us. We deserve so much more. While others scramble for enough grain or
legumes locally to barely sustain themselves, we import every kind of fruit and
vegetable from the far corners of the earth to rot in our refrigerators and be
tossed out unconsumed. But it is OK. We are gods and deserve what those others
can never even dream of.
The contradictions in this world
are astonishing. Millions are spent for trips to the Holy Land, to walk where
Jesus walked. After we travel, the only thing we have besides memories of
vistas seen are a few photos and kitschy souvenirs. When we return, we are the
same fractured people who left. Nonetheless, we encourage others to spend their
means to do the same. Then when God calls us to service, we hide from him in
our garden, means we might have used to relieve suffering spent, succored by the
photos and souvenirs we strove so hard to obtain. We withdraw indifferent to
our need for him or his need for us. We surround ourselves with so much
detritus and become so enamored with it and our ability to accumulate it that
we no longer hear when God calls us to walk with him. We have become the
“walking dead” spell bound to keep aimlessly pursuing what gods like us pursue,
never seeing the futility of our existence.
But every fall, nature, which
continues to honor its Creator, gives us a reminder of the impermanence of our
existence, and every spring we are reminded that there remains a promise of
restoration. We do not have to succumb to the temporary allurements of the lie
told so long ago. For millennia, we have been reminded, not only by the Bible,
but by the lives of those who have modeled a better way that it is possible to
break free from the lie. We are all family, one humanity, created to live in
the image of God. Rather than take advantage of others for our gain, we were
created to uplift one another through loving service so that all may have
everything they need, and none need exploit others.
We live in a world where too
many believe that plucking the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil is no longer simply a choice but an indispensable right. While we will not
fight for the right to be of service to others as Christ taught, we will fight
and even die for what we feel to be our rights, at the expense of every other
soul on the planet if necessary. We are unwilling to live for the future hope
of Eden restored. We want all we can have now, and we are constantly told we
can and should have it. Some may not believe that Satan exists or that he spoke
temptation to Adam and Eve long ago, but there is little doubt of the message
flooding every form of media today. The lies have the same source. “Did God say
that this is how you should live? You don’t need that. You need this new car,
these great clothes, or travel to this exotic location. A pool in the backyard
would be nice, or at least a bathroom remodel with a walk-in spa bathtub.”
Jesus tried to tell us that
these pursuits are all just chasing magical glimmer with no substance. He told
us that if we love one another and humbly serve one another, we will lack
nothing we need. He not only taught this, but he also lived it. He is still
waiting for those who will stop chasing these illusory promises crafted by the
father of lies. God came to the garden for his usual walk with us long ago, and
we hid from him. He is still waiting for that walk, but too many are still hiding
behind a wall of possessions. Who is willing to come out from behind that wall
and walk with him? And if not now, when?