Meditation #1

Today is the sixth anniversary (or I guess yesterday was) of 9-11. Anymore, it's something that affects our life everyday and we refer to it often, but we never really remember it but a few times a year. To me, it spurs up a few questions...

What's the big deal about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?

Isn't it a good thing to know the difference of what good and evil is?

Often times I have heard many people explain Genesis 3 so that God didn't want Adam and Eve to know what was right and wrong, that He wanted them to be blind.

I think that is wrong.
It's missing the point.

The point is not what is right or wrong. The point is God.

Before the fall, all Adam and Eve knew was God. They knew Him. Intimately. Like Adam knew Eve and she conceived.

After they ate from the tree, they knew evil and they knew good. Intimately.

So what's the big deal? Well for one, the knowledge of evil. Not one person reading this has abstained from evil. What's even deeper than that, is very few people recognize evil when they're in it because we are so intimate with it.

I would propose there is a bigger tragedy. We can no longer know God. Back in the Old Testament, God required blood for evil. Imagine this, for the weight of it is incredible.

A sheep. Pure. White. Innocent. Think of it in terms of a pet, something that you've spent years petting, feeding from a bottle, nursing. Imagine walking with it, hearing it cry out to you.
Now imagine slicing it up with a knife.
Seems pretty sick to me.

Now imagine Jesus. Pure. Sinless. Innocent. A man with the ability to at any time stop the punishment he bore. Imagine walking with him, hearing him call out to you.
Now imagine ripping his skin with a whip, shoving thorns into his skull and pounding a nail through his hands and feet and leaving him for dead.
When was the last time you thought about it? He bore our wrath. Is the cross just an event like 9-11?

9-11 was a tragedy. So was the cross. The difference between the two is that my sins killed Christ. That's a pretty big stinkin deal. And what for?

That I might know God.

-Andrew-