BACK TO THE GARDEN
In my first year of Bible College, one of the courses that I took was "Old Testament Literature". The class was an overview of the entire Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi. One of the assignments that we were given was to choose five major stories from the Old Testament and rewrite them as children's stories. The idea of the assignment was to get us thinking about key events of the Old Testament, but also to help us see the major themes of the Scriptures. To communicate Biblical truths to five year-olds you need to think in very broad, thematic terms. It was a fun assignment to complete, but on top of being fun, I also learned something (who would've thought?).
My group chose our stories and began to examine and rewrite them, trying to discern the major themes and truths of each one. What amazed me was that there was striking continuity between each of the stories. Every one carried major themes of God's father-like pursuit of His wayward people.
As a species, humanity's story had a perfect beginning; pure, harmonious relationship with God, with each other and with the world. It was God's perfect dream. We choose our own way, however; turned away from God's will and choose to make ourselves gods instead. Since then, God has never stopped chasing us. Throughout all of Scripture you can hear God's pleading, tender call, "I am here. Where are you?" His voice still calls.
Joni Mitchell's "got to get ourselves back to the garden" (from the song, "Woodstock") resonates something of truth and longing for me. Maybe I don't share the same hippy-topia vision that the song conveys, but I understand its longing for something lost. We were once whole. Now we are not. We are caught in a world at war, and we ourselves are at odds with everything, including God and ourselves. But this world at war is not God's dream. And in His dream there is still hope, even in the midst of our nightmare. The Biblical image of the garden is not only found in Genesis, at the beginning of all things, before corruption was conceived. The image is also found in Revelation, a vision of the end of all things. It is a vision of restoration, a vision of hope. Mainly though, it is a vision of a place where humans have stopped running. The is no voice of God calling, "Where are you?" His call will only be "Here I am. Here we are."
Are you running from God? Do you sense that He is calling you back into restored relationship with Him? How are you responding to his call?
My group chose our stories and began to examine and rewrite them, trying to discern the major themes and truths of each one. What amazed me was that there was striking continuity between each of the stories. Every one carried major themes of God's father-like pursuit of His wayward people.
As a species, humanity's story had a perfect beginning; pure, harmonious relationship with God, with each other and with the world. It was God's perfect dream. We choose our own way, however; turned away from God's will and choose to make ourselves gods instead. Since then, God has never stopped chasing us. Throughout all of Scripture you can hear God's pleading, tender call, "I am here. Where are you?" His voice still calls.
Joni Mitchell's "got to get ourselves back to the garden" (from the song, "Woodstock") resonates something of truth and longing for me. Maybe I don't share the same hippy-topia vision that the song conveys, but I understand its longing for something lost. We were once whole. Now we are not. We are caught in a world at war, and we ourselves are at odds with everything, including God and ourselves. But this world at war is not God's dream. And in His dream there is still hope, even in the midst of our nightmare. The Biblical image of the garden is not only found in Genesis, at the beginning of all things, before corruption was conceived. The image is also found in Revelation, a vision of the end of all things. It is a vision of restoration, a vision of hope. Mainly though, it is a vision of a place where humans have stopped running. The is no voice of God calling, "Where are you?" His call will only be "Here I am. Here we are."
Are you running from God? Do you sense that He is calling you back into restored relationship with Him? How are you responding to his call?
posted by Journey Church at 1:06 p.m.
1 Comments:
One of my memorable assignments in college (in the 70s - admit it, Chris, that's what you were thinking) was to decide what I would say if I had the world's ear for five minutes. It was a fascinating idea to think about. Of course, I decided right away, I would want to get people thinking about faith and God somehow. So how would I go about that? What angle should I take? In the end, the best approach I could think of was to highlight the "there's got to be something more" factor. No matter what anyone's circumstances are or what culture they're immersed in, at some point they are more than likely have thought to themselves, "Is this it?!! Can this really be as good as it gets? There's got to be more to this life than...this life!" God has set eternity in our hearts, He says, and I see it everywhere in people. Some personalities are such that it's more obvious, some live in tragic circumstances so it exists closer to the surface, but all of humanity has had it rattling around inside us from the moment Adam and Eve walked out of the garden. As our friends in the band Switchfoot would say, "We were meant to live for so much more". Well said, Switchfoot dudes. Well said.
Malcolm
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