Chosen for This

Read Genesis 3:1-24 & Ephesians 1:3-10
Want to go deeper today? Read Revelation 21:1-7

Light two candles and say together
Come, Emmanuel, walk with us again.

Reflection

The Advent story, God's great rescue plan to send us Jesus, matters especially because of what happened right in the beginning. This is "the fall," the moment that human sin began to sink the beautiful plan God had for creation. We, humans, opened up a part of the world that could not, would not be closed by our own effort. We made a real mess of things just with a simple choice to doubt God's Word and to grab onto power.

Adam and Eve sinned and it broke their friendship with God. In an attempt to make things right in the aftermath, people were given rules to follow to try to live blameless lives, but it was always too hard, too impossible to rid themselves of sin forever. Sin always finds a way to get between us and God. The law was given to point out the impossibility of mustering up a fix. Only someone perfect and divine could solve this sin issue.

Let’s consider what was broken and what is being restored. In the Garden, Adam and Eve shared a space with God. God often walked through the Garden with Adam and Eve. We don't know what this looked like, but it is implied that before the fall, Adam and Eve experienced a God-on-Earth kind of thing. This is the kind of intimacy that God designed when He created us: to be so close to Him and so known that we could walk with Him side by side. We were created for this. We were chosen for this.

Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden because it was a forever Garden. With God, there is no death, and yet Adam and Eve had brought pain and shame into this forever-life. God didn't have the heart to let them live forever somewhere that would now hurt, so they were sent out to live in a temporal place. This is how they brought death upon themselves, how sin leads to death. Sin creates rifts (death) in relationships, in trust, in creation... It creates a world that is a little less worth living in. We all crave a different type of life, a better kind of life, one not marked with pain and death. We long for a life that looks a whole lot more like that Garden God created to walk with us in. The good news is, God has promised that this reality will come again.

During Advent, we practice situating ourselves with our brothers and sisters in the Old Testament who are waiting for a promised Saviour. We also acknowledge our current reality that waits for Jesus's promised return, when we will be invited into a new Garden in the new heaven and earth (Revelation 21:1). And, we look for moments of connection with God With Us (Emmanuel), who invites us to walk with Him as we wait.

Reflect and Discuss

  • Where do you see God’s kindness and care show up in this account in Genesis?
  • Have you ever felt like you’ve had an encounter with God? Where and when did this happen?
  • Can you identify with the “chosen” identifier from the Ephesians passage? How does it feel to know that Jesus can make you to be holy and blameless in God’s sight?

Pray
Lord, we long for the days when we would walk in the Garden with you in the cool of the morning. Draw near to us and walk with us again. May your kingdom come so we may walk this New Garden with you.
Amen.

Advent in Action
Go for a walk with God.


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