St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Pentecost 3 – June 26^th and 29^th, 2003

Dear people of God,

Today is self-confession day. One of last days of school, I went to pick up my son from school. It was like any other day. I was waiting to turn into the little alley that leads into the playground at Western Ave. As I was coming another two cars were coming out the way I wanted to go in so I backed up and let them out. But there were cars parked all around and there was another car trying to squeeze by me. It was very tight for space and I swerved to avoid one of the three cars trying to get past me. I looked out my mirror and I though to myself, I think I hit the mirror and front fender of the car that was parked on the side of the road. Now what do you do? I waited for all the cars to clear and found a parking spot and then proceeded to look at the car that I thought I might have hit. Sure enough there was a little paint mark on the mirror and a little ding by the front fender. I figured out whose car it was, since it was someone from school and went to talk to that person. I could have just left it since it was such a small mark and a small dent. I could have pretended that nothing happened because who would have known that it was me the pastor, but I didn’t. I found the person and told him that I think I might have nicked his car so we went and looked at the car. We looked at the mirror and the dent and realized that both of the marks were made with something that was white and my van is maroon. It proceeded to tell me that his wife and kids had put those marks on the car a while a go. He thanked me for talking to him and we went on our ways. No harm done, but boy did it feel good to know that I was off the hook.

As we live our lives on this earth, we realize that we all have had experiences like the one that I had. We have done things or said things that we know are wrong or might be wrong. How are we going to handle the feeling of guilt? Are we going to try and hide it and act like nothing happened, or are we going to confess the things we do wrong and look for forgiveness. God in the our text this morning is using the lives of two very well-known people to point out to us how we as sinful human beings need to answer the question we will use as the theme of today’s sermon:

I’m not a weather person, but isn’t it interesting to see how quick a weather front can move in and change the weather in just a matter of minutes sometimes. A beautiful sunny and hot day can suddenly be changed into a windy and rainy day with the weather becoming much cooler – sometimes in a very short time As the weather can change in a matter minutes from sunny and hot to rainy and chilly, so the change in mankind from holiness to sin turned the warm and sunny promise of a perfect future for us and all creation into the cold and dreary reality of a world that had fallen into sin. The reality of these devastating effects of sin strike us right between the eyes in the verses of our text, which immediately follow the record of the fall into sin. The dark clouds of man’s sin and complete fall into sin and evil as well as the threatening clouds of God’s impending judgment replace the bright cloudless sky. Yet in our text we also see the clouds part to reveal not the lightning of God’s righteous wrath but the sunshine of his grace.

The very first words of our text jump into the problem at hand – Adam and Eve’s guilt. These opening verses open with a remarkable statement reflecting the forgiving grace and mercy of the LORD. Listen to these words. ⁸Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He had warned Adam and Eve. They knew the consequences of eating the fruit, which God had forbidden. Who could have faulted God for wiping them off the face of his once perfect world? He owed them nothing. But God is love. His love, which had created them holy and spared nothing to give them a paradise in which to live — that love did not desert them now that they had sinned against God. God’s love caused him to seek and find the sinner who is hiding and not wanting God to seek him. The LORD had a plan ready from eternity for this occasion.

But let’s back up a minute. They had just sinned and realized they were sinful. They had felt guilt for the very first time. The voice of their God-given conscience was ringing in their ears, reminding them, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Gen 2:17). That inner voice was suddenly drowned out by the audible voice of the LORD himself calling to Adam and Eve who were foolishly attempting to hide from God. The LORD was calling to teach the first sinners what all future sinners would also need to learn -- you can’t hide from God. Sinners need to learn to come to God honestly admitting their sin and guilt and penitently pleading for his mercy.

Did you notice one small point in these verses? Since man didn’t approach God, in great mercy the LORD approached man to call him to account. It was the LORD who called to Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve who cried out to the LORD. They were filled with understandable fear. Seeing the LORD was the last thing they wanted to do that tragic day! They would have been content to hide from God forever, happy to avoid him always and live in their guilt forever. They were afraid to approach God because of their guilt; yet, that is precisely what they both needed to do. God therefore takes the first step toward man, a step that enables and empowers man to step toward God. He asked them "Where are you?" God doesn’t ask so that he may find man but so that man may find the LORD. The LORD still desires fellowship with man. But the sin-barrier which man has erected must be recognized and removed. Man needs to recognize it. God will remove it.

But did they fess up right away. I’m afraid not! "Adam answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." ¹¹And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" ¹²The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Adam was ready to admit his fear but not to confess its cause. Adam fails to tell the whole truth about the reason for his trembling. The cause of his fear was not his nakedness. It was rather his shame in his nakedness, even as his trembling itself was the result of his sin. Adam didn’t honestly confess this..

God does not permit this answer to suffice. Adam’s reply might have been understood to blame God for the trembling which Adam felt in his presence, as if God were a tyrant to be feared for his injustice and unpredictable rage. Therefore, God in his mercy patiently bears with Adam’s lying and leads him to an admission of his wrong behavior. It is interesting to observe that although the perfect knowledge, which Adam possessed, has been lost — as demonstrated by his childish effort to hide from God — Adam still knows that God is all-knowing. He is aware that God knows he has eaten the forbidden fruit. Pitifully he cowers and hides in vain from a God he knows will find him.

And God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" "How did you come to this trembling?" God asks. He wants Adam to confess the reason why he was troubled by his nakedness. Since Adam didn’t offer the only true explanation, the LORD pointedly asks him about his behavior with the intent to get Adam to accept the responsibility for his actions. The knowledge of nakedness and the shame in being naked are inseparably tied to the sinful action. This Adam must admit. So Adam did what any sinful person might do – he blamed others, "The man said, "The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Adam is not ready to take full responsibility for his actions. He offers an excuse and picks two scapegoats for his guilt. He makes a futile effort first to place the blame on the woman, and second upon God himself for giving him such a helper. "She didn’t help me and neither did you by giving her to me" is the effect of his words. With the advent of sin comes the departure, at least temporarily, of the appreciation of Eve as a special gift from the LORD.

With all the shifting of the blame the bottom line, however, is the admission of the action with the words "I ate it." What led up to the eating, who joined him in the unholy supper doesn’t matter. The fact is Adam ate. He was not force-fed, he himself ate. That is why he was filled with shame and fear. Now the truth is out. But now it was Eve’s turn, "Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and late." Adam bears the blame for his actions. Eve, too, needs to admit her guilt and take responsibility for her actions. Therefore, the LORD mercifully addresses her next. He directs her attention to her behavior, "What is this you have done?" She, too, qualifies her confession and seeks to exonerate herself by placing the blame on the serpent. In effect she, too, is saying that the blame ultimately belongs to God, for it was he who created the serpent. Eve had been deceived, but that was not an excuse. She ate. The miserable excuses are set aside. She, too, is ultimately responsible for what she has done.

Can you believe these two people. Adam and Eve are clueless aren’t they?. Why in the world would they try and hide their sins from God who knows all things? If I was talking to God I would fess up right away and clear up what I had done wrong – or would I. There are all of these new shows on TV which video tape a whole persons life and plays it back on TV for all to watch and see. How much of your private life would you want to replay to others -- much less before God? Would we really want God to see all the things we do behind closed doors or when we are out of the sight of others? They have said the pornography industry has grown to tremendous proportions, just because it is now available in the confines of your own home through the Internet or Satellite dishes. If no one can keep a watch over you then there seems to be less guilt and people do things that they normally wouldn’t do. How many of us use language that we no is inappropriate and quite offensive to others and most certainly to God when we are out of the sight of our school, our church or other Christians, but when we are by ourselves we let them slip out quite naturally. Have we stood up boldly when God has called us with his Ten Commandments to say I have broken your commands God and I need your help, or have we done a pretty good job of hiding from God? I think we should all be sitting a few inches shorter in the pews and crouching a little lower in the pulpit as we feel guilty from all of our guilt piling up around us.

Thankfully, God doesn’t give up on us and certainly has never stopped his love for us. Adam and Eve were floundering in their lies and sin, but God could see into their hearts and promises them a Savior from their sin and all the sins for the rest of time this world is in existence. God gives us the words of Genesis 3:15, which is the first Gospel promise, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and I will strike his heel." Since his rebellion against God, the devil had felt enmity or hatred toward God and his creation. The devil is seeking to murder or kill the human race in his hatred. Now that Adam and Eve had experienced his damnable hatred, the hatred would become mutual. This hatred toward the devil and his offspring would be found in the "offspring" of the woman.

What does this verse exactly mean? Who are Eve’s offspring and who is the offspring God is promising? The "offspring" that God promised is the Champion, which would fight individually against the devil on behalf of the whole human race who would descended from the woman. The LORD refers to an individual offspring from among the woman’s offspring. This man from among the people of God will inflict a mortal wound upon Satan, thus crushing his head while at the same time he himself will suffer a flesh wound from Satan. This promise of the One who would overcome the devil has found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God as well as the son of Mary. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work" (1 John 3:8).

Satan sought him and hounded him for his life from the beginning; yet he never could take it from him. Death did come to Christ, however. He voluntarily offered up his life to God as a perfect sacrifice for sin In that death he suffered the death of hell. God’s entire wrath against sin came to rest upon him. This great suffering and all the lesser suffering which preceded it was the "striking of his heel" by Satan.

Satan’s striking was, however, a part of God’s plan of salvation as the devil provoked his own destruction. The shedding of Christ’s blood was part of God’s plan. "The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin" (1 John 1:7). This blood has redeemed the world from sin, death and the power of the devil. It has therefore "crushed Satan’s head," as God had promised. This victory is guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on the third day .

This victory God promised in these first gospel words to Adam and Eve. God had his plan laid out for Adam and Eve and for us as sinners. What a relief from our load of guilt to know that we can and should lay all that guilt of sin on the shoulders of Jesus who carried the load of all sinner’s guilt to the cross. It will do us no good to try and run away or hide, because he asks us to come to him with all of our troubles and he promises us that our sins are forgiven. He hasn’t given up on us, but rather he loved us all the more as he conquered sin, death and devil for us on the cross of Calvary. Amen