They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. (Mark 15:22-24 NIV)
Every year at Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Christ child; the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah who would be known as Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” God became flesh and lived among humanity; side-by-side with the unworthy, unclean, and unholy.
But why?
Why did the Word become flesh, as John writes in his gospel (John 1:14)?
Starting at the Beginning
Let’s start at the very beginning because it’s a very good place to start. More than that, if we ignore how the story of humanity began, we will have little chance of understanding the what, how, and why of Easter. In Genesis (which means “the beginning”) we read the story of God’s creative handiwork and, in particular, the story of the first human beings. There are a wide range of approaches to the interpretation of these foundational stories—are they cold, hard, historical facts that must be taken absolutely literally? Or are they deeply symbolic stories full of deep truths that move us far beyond mere history?
Let me just say here, that whatever your view, these writings are the foundation on which the remainder of Scripture rests. When we understand God’s plan and purpose from the genesis of the world (particularly the genesis of humanity) we will better understand what the Christmas and Easter accounts are all about, how Jesus’ birth and death connect with these first chapters of Genesis, and why Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again.
Shalom
From all appearances, the world that God created and ordered was good; very good, actually (Gen 1:31). Take a moment and imagine a lush garden with cool afternoon breezes, filled with animals of all kinds, and delicious fruits to eat. Imagine the first adams (in Hebrew adam means “human”)—male and female—living in partnership as helpers and, very importantly, with no threat of suffering and no death. Everything was in the state of shalom – good, peaceful, in balance, and just as God had planned and purposed.
Back in the Garden of Eden “holy” and “at peace, complete, and in tune with its purpose” were one and the same. (Dave Deckard, “Genesis,” Kindle 372)
A key part of that plan was for humanity to bear the image and likeness of God; that is, human beings—both female and male—contained within themselves the essence or likeness of the God they represented. This was not a physical likeness, as if God had a physical body that had been somehow used as a blueprint for humanity. Instead, human beings created in the image of God were designed and intended to carry out God’s purpose and work on earth.
We don’t know how long the world existed in this state of shalom, but we are all familiar with what took place when the serpent approached unassuming humanity with an unthinkable temptation—to doubt what God had said, to step beyond the one boundary which the beloved Creator had set, and to desire more of themselves than what was rightly theirs (Gen 3).
Choosing to Follow the Serpent
In the end, both Adam and Eve decided that they were better off following the serpent’s dubious tale rather than the trustworthy truth of their Creator. In the same way, the entire history of humanity is one long story with one recurring plot; that is, human beings time and time again choosing to turn their back on their loving Creator to follow the metaphorical serpent!
The name Adam becomes therefore a representative name for the whole of humanity, which means that the story of “the fall” in Genesis 3 is in reality the story of our daily choice to listen to the serpent rather than our creator. (Robin Stockett, “Restoring the Shamed,” Kindle 440)
When Adam and Eve turned away from God, the writer of Genesis gives us a clear picture of the consequences: sin slithered in, shalom was shattered, and life in the garden was no longer as God had planned and purposed. The same is true every time we turn and follow the snake: sin seeps into our lives in ways we never dreamed possible, shalom is silenced, and our lives reflect nothing of what God desires of us.
Seeing Easter in the Garden
God, speaking to the serpent in Genesis 3:14-15, following the events in the garden, says:
Because you have done this,
Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.
God points out the enmity that will exist between humanity and the serpent, a reality that extends far deeper than the physical world alone. We were created to be people bearing the image and likeness of God; to be people of goodness and life. Sin did not put an end to this purpose, though the image of God has been stained and distorted.
The serpent will continuously strike at the heal of humanity, making it difficult, if not impossible, to walk with God in the way we were created to do. But the offspring of the woman—Jesus Christ—would someday arrive on the scene to crush the head of the serpent, even as the serpent struck his heel to the point of death.