Where the Buck Stops
Proper 5: Old Testament, Genesis 3:8-15
Genesis 3:8-15
Adam and Eve had blown it. And who knows but one might be led to think that after they realized what they had done in their blatant disobedience, they might have thought God would stay away. And that, for good. But truth be told, and the Bible always does that, God was anything but absent following the fall. “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day …” (Genesis 3:8a). They were not alone and they knew it. In fact, this “sound” is found in the Psalms and it’s no rustling of leaves or snapping of twigs. This is God coming to them with the sounds of judgment. It may be in the cool of the day, when the garden was most pleasant, but running into the Chief Gardner after twin acts of rebellion leaves no room for comfort.
We know the sequence of events. God calls out Adam, who blames Eve, who blames the serpent. The old “passing of the buck” ploy. And again, one might get the idea that the boom would drop on all the three, the garden would be cleaned of them for good and perhaps God would begin again. Clean slate. Not so.
The proverbial buck stops alright. But not with husband or wife, and honestly not even with the serpent, for although he is most certainly behind the rebellion, the deeds can only be undone by the future offspring of the woman who is also Son of the Gardener. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Genesis 3:15, known in the history of God’s people as the “protoevangelion,” or first gospel, declares that God will have His way at the destruction of the serpent through the redeeming love and action of His Son. Grace and mercy abound that the Chief Gardener would not allow His tenants to carry the final burden of their deeds. No, the buck passes on and stops for the final time with the Gardener’s Son who infinitely loves His Father. Obedience is traded for disobedience and so in the future, there will be a grand family in a new garden (see Rev. 22:19). No serpents allowed.
