When Adam and Eve decided that they would live by their own rules rather than God’s rules, it wasn’t enough just to blush and hide behind a tree to sew up some leafy underwear. It wasn’t enough that they were questioned, convicted and sentenced by the Divine Almighty Judge. It wasn’t enough that they heard those gut-wrenching curses pronounced on them – things like giving birth in pain and raising crops in thorns and thistles. It wasn’t even enough that from that day they were headed for a future that would eventually put them six feet under. More was coming. As a final and absolutely necessary action, their landlord kicked them out. To make sure that they got the point, a big, burly security guard – the angelic kind – stationed himself at the gate with a flaming sword to make sure that they could never make it back to the tree of life. And so it was that they became homeless and helpless criminals forever on the run – our not-so-great grandparents.
But of course, the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree – especially the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil. Like father, like son. Like Adam and Eve, like you and me. That’s what we just sang in our sermon hymn (LSB 569):
Like Adam we have all been one,
One huge rebellious man;
We all have fled that evening voice
That sought us as we ran.
And so we who are not-so-great have been running ever since. Climbing up our mountains of pride. Clawing our way through thickets of lies. Barreling down the valleys of depravity. Stampeding over anyone and anything that dares to get in our way. We’ve come a long way – a long way from home. So here we are, no longer residents of Eden – but residents of the desert.
Some people find the desert to be beautiful and mysterious. But the truth is, the desert really doesn’t have much going for it, especially if you’re stuck in the middle-of-nowhere with no food or, even worse, no water. There’s a very good reason why people call it a godforsaken wilderness. Hot, shifting sands – killer snakes – vegetation covered with thorns – no relief of any kind from the burning sun – it does make you think that even God has forsaken country like this.
We Adams and Eves have been born and still live in exactly this kind of wilderness. We can irrigate it, we can air-condition it, we can pretty it up to our heart’s content, but it’s really just a waste of time, part of our non-stop self-deception. We try to act like the sands of prosperity or fame are actually the fertile soil of paradise. We convince ourselves that chewing on a thorny cactus is just as tasty as the old tree of life was. Our knees become weak from kneeling before the gods of money and pleasure, and our backs are weighed down by our burdens of guilt. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. That’s the way life is in the desert, just outside the gate of Eden.
But there is a preacher out there in that desert, that wilderness. They call him John the Baptizer. He comes into this desert world with the scroll of Isaiah on his lips. He has a message that will leave this godforsaken land permanently changed, a message that goes like this: God has not forsaken us. He speaks of Emmanuel, God with us, and he describes a permanent change in our deathly landscape. As Isaiah said, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.” John proclaims that a change is coming – in fact, a change has already come. A really big change – a change from death to life. For the one who evicted Adam and Eve has come, has advented, to us.
His advent into our miserable desert signals the reversal of everything we know. Wherever He goes, new life springs forth, just as Isaiah prophesied. The eyes of the blind are opened. The ears of the deaf are unstopped. The lame man leaps like a deer. The tongue of the mute sings for joy. He has come – for you. He sought you; He tracked you down, no matter where you were hiding. He’s not here to indict you or heap curses on your head, but to save you. Your fig leaves are replaced with His robe of righteousness. He gives strength to your weak hands and feeble knees and speaks to your anxious hearts. He tells us to be strong and forget our fears. He tells us that he has come to take us home – back home to Eden.
When Jesus is born, waters gush forth in our wilderness and streams flow in our desert. Everything is reversed, made new – just like it was in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. He turns water into wine, sickness into health and death into life. In a desert world, there is only one place where life can survive – the place where there is water. Now the waters that come gushing forth to our thirsty bodies are a true fountain of life. They’re not some kind of desert mirage, and they’re not fouled with pollution or poison. Jesus takes you into His hands, carries you into that fountain and lets you soak up the life that is His own.
Where does this water come from? It comes from the hole made in His side by the soldier’s spear, a flowing river that streams from the wound that He suffered for you. Thousands of years ago, the Children of Israel quenched their thirst in the wilderness from a rock that was struck by Moses. The same Rock is now a body, pierced by a brutal weapon of war. That Rock that gushes forth with peace and life from Him who was dead but now lives. In Him – in His water – in His river of life – you now live.
Isaiah prophesied that a highway would be found in that wilderness, and now it is – called the Way of Holiness. It is the way of the Church, built on the raw materials of Emmanuel’s flesh and blood. And you, God’s redeemed, are traveling on it even as we speak. There is only one way back to Paradise. Only one pathway leads to life. He who is the way, the truth and the life is the only road back to Eden. When the Children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, they left corpse after corpse to be covered by the shifting, burning sands. But the Way of Holiness is a way of life – not death. In this Church, in this highway of Christ, you have already accelerated from death to life. You have been baptized into Jesus. You have been washed out of the grave and have been hand-delivered into the newness of life.
But tonight, we journey. We are citizens of Eden once more – but we’re not there yet. We are already tasting the fruit of the tree of life every time that we dine on our Lord’s body and blood. But we also await the day when we – in our resurrected flesh – will see Him face-to-face in the garden above. After seeing Him, we long-lost Adams and Eves will forever bask in the goodness of His love.
Eden is waiting for us. Welcome home.
Note: This sermon is freely and largely adapted from an Advent sermon series that originally was published in Concordia Pulpit Resources.
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