Friday, June 6, 2014

Return to Eden

Brad Sullivan
7 Easter, Year A
Sunday, June 1, 2014
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11

On Thursday, the church celebrated the feast of the Ascension. Today, we heard the story in Acts of Jesus ascending into heaven and the angels telling the disciples, “what are y’all doing standing around looking up at Heaven. Go. Live the way of Jesus.”

Thinking about Jesus’ ascension made me think about why Jesus came here. Why did God become human? Why did he teach us and minister to us and heal us? Why did he let us kill him? Why was he resurrected, and why did he ascend into Heaven. I hear the answer in our reading from John’s Gospel this morning. “Father, protect them in your name you have given me, that they may be one as we are one.”

Jesus came to make us one with God and one with each other. Jesus came to return us to Eden.

In Eden, we lived in union with God and each other. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. They walked with God. They shared vulnerability and knew each other intimately without shame or fear. Then came the fall.

They decided the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil looked tasty and that they wanted knowledge more than intimacy and union with God and so they ate, and what was the first result of their disobedience? Shame.