Part 10 - The Long Awaited King

After the Beginning Came the End

(Genesis 3)

As you will know from all other stories you have read, a good beginning is all well and good, but that is never the end of the book. After the beginning usually comes the middle, followed by the end. But this is not a story like any other story. After this story’s beginning, comes the end.

After God had made everything he could think of. After he had given it to his most prized possession, his children. After that astonishing beginning, there came a terrible end.

Adam and Eve, God’s first children, had everything they could ever need, they lived in Eden, a breathtaking garden filled with everything God had created.

But they didn’t think they had everything they could ever want.

In Eden God had given them just one rule. There was one thing, out of the million-gazillion things he had created that they could not have.

It was a piece of fruit.

It was not that they couldn’t have any fruit. No, they had barrels of apples, and forests of bananas, they had orchards of pears and vineyards of grapes. They had miles upon miles of orange groves and lemon groves and lime groves…no, they had fruit, but they could not have a certain fruit. Just one fruit from all the fruits God said they couldn’t have.

The fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

And God said ‘no’ for good reason. If they ate this fruit it would end everything.

The perfect garden would die,

the perfect animals would die

but more than that, they would die.

And God would never be able to see them again. If they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge they would walk away from God and everything he could give them. They would be strangers to the person who loved them the most. Their hearts would be stained with sin and imperfection meaning they could never be near God again. They would be broken, hurt and lost forever.

God said ‘no’ to protect them.

But Adam and Eve didn’t want God’s protection.

Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

Before they ate the fruit, Satan had whispered in their ear.

Quietly.

Slowly.

Lovingly.

He whispered “Are you sure God really loves you?”

The garden fell silent while Adam and Eve considered their answer.

The trees stopped their rustling, the birds muted their song.

They all waited, straining to hear the answer that Adam and Eve would give to the horrifying lie.

Eve took the fruit from the tree and turned it over and over in her hand. With one unified shout the trees took up their song again together with the birds and the fish and the wild animals, all of them clamoring to tell them that it wasn’t true, God did love them…

But it was as if Adam and Eve could no longer hear the perfect truth that surrounded them. Crying out to them with everything it had. It was as if they could no longer see the perfect beauty that once flooded their eyes with colour and clarity and truth.

All they could hear was the lie.

The trees & birds fell silent once more, but not with a silence of hope and patience as before.

They were not waiting with baited breath for an answer.

They knew.                                                     

It was over.

Everything was broken.                                  

Everything was lost.

This was the sound of the end.