Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost: Old Testament, Genesis 4:1-15             

Genesis 4:1-15

It doesn’t take long. Mankind falls and fails miserably, and that in an ideal environment. So much for the environment vs. genetics debate. But this problem, on exhibit so clearly in Genesis chapter four goes deeper than the genes. The mystery and anguish of sin is in mom and dad and has now found its way into Cain, Abel, into every human thereafter. “The wages of sin is death,” says the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Roman Christians.

In Cain’s slaying of his own brother Abel we see Paul’s conclusion on display. Death is simply what sin in the heart and life produces. Death is sin’s fruit. And death is the fruit of our work. The solution, the only solution is a gift. Our work is death producing. Life, on the other hand, begets life. Life issues forth in a work that saves, that rescues. And that work is done and completed outside of us. The first family desperately needed rescue from what resides in us all. So do we.

The Solution has been provided.