CALL TO WORSHIP: Isaiah 7.14.

14.Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

1st HYMN: O come, O come, Immanuel. [WORDS: From the Latin (Thirteenth Century); Tr. by John Mason Neale, 1818-66; MUSIC: “Veni Immanuel; The Hymnal Noted, 1854; adapted by Thomas Helmore, 1811-90]

PRAYER:

2nd HYMN: Father of heaven, whose love profound. [WORDS: Edward Cooper, 1770 – 1833; MUSIC: “Rivaulx”; German Traditional Melody]

BIBLE READINGS: Genesis 1.26-31

26.Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27.So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28.God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29.Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30.And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground— everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31.God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

****** ****** ****** ****** ******

“Then God said, Let US make man in OUR image …’” I see no reason not to adopt the traditional Christian understanding of this passage that the “us” and “our” of this passage refers to the Trinity. There are those who simply say it is an expression of the plural of majesty – such as Queen Elizabeth and other monarchs use even to this day. Others say God is talking in the council of Heaven – meaning amongst the angels – but there is no indication in Scripture that I can find that supports the involvement of angels in the act of creation.

On the contrary, we have the Holy Spirit “hovering over the waters”1 – acting, as it were, like a supervisor ensuring all meshes together properly. And then we have the Apostle John saying of Jesus, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”2 Thus, we see the Three Persons names in Scripture as agents of creation.

Six times previously, God has said of creation that “it was good.”3 But, with the creation of man, we read, “God saw all that he had made, and it was VERY good.” [v. 31] What made the transformation from “good” to “very good”? One can only assume that it was the creation of man – God’s image-bearer. Thus, we have man bearing a special status. Being God’s image-bearer, he elevates creation to a higher plain.

The nature of this “image-bearing” is much disputed. Without going into all the possibilities, I will simply point to the fact that God is eternal and created man; man is not eternal and created God. This should awaken us to the temptation that often man falls into of creating God in his image. The danger of this can be seen in the pantheon of gods in civilisations such as Greece and Rome. As we read classical mythology, we are struck by how similar these gods are to human beings. They are subject to human weaknesses of jealousy, lust, capricious violence, anger and murder. The “God” of many modern day men and women is not much different.

But the God of Scripture is very different. He is the God who provides all mankind needs; He is the God who reaches out to mankind in its troubles; He is the God who offers redemption to sinful mankind.

We are to be His image-bearers; He is not to be ours! We are to become more God-like as we were at the time of creation; we are to turn to Jesus the perfect image bearer of God so that we can be changed – be reborn from above.

Man lost the perfection of being God’s image-bearer when he fell into sin. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews comments on Psalm 8 – which, itself, is the Psalmist’s commentary on creation and says,

In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. [Heb. 2.8f; NIV]

Thus it is that we are to be the ones to change – not God. We are to be transformed to regain our true identity of being God’s image-bearers if creation is ever to be “very good” again.

Genesis 3.6-21

6.When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7.Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8.Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9.But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10.He  answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11.And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12.The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13.Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14.So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dustall the days of your life. 15.And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16.To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17.To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18.It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19.By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” 20.Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21.The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

****** ****** ****** ****** ******

“All this I give you,” and with that, God’s arm made a majestic sweep of His own personal garden – Eden. He was speaking to the man He had just created. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; BUT…” there are always “buts” in life. Life without “buts” isn’t life but anarchy.

We all know what happened. How can we blame God for banishing our forebears from Eden? Why couldn’t they just stick with everything else and leave the “but” alone?

The reason, of course, is that human nature doesn’t change. They are just like us. It is the “buts” of life that cause us all the problems we face, because we can’t help but push the envelope to see just how restrictive the “buts” really are. And neither could Adam and Eve resist this particular “but”. If we were there, we would have done the same, so let’s not get all smug and superior about it.

But, what is really astonishing is that, in the midst of dishing out the justified punishment for disobedience, God’s amazing grace shines through: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Ah! Thank God for the protevangelium – the first mention of the Gospel. Ah! Thank God for the promise of Immanuel – “God with us”

* “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” [Isa. 7.14; NIV]
* “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” [Rom. 7.24f; NIV]

We are not left in sin without hope. We are not left to inevitably and eternally suffer for our foolishness. God is a God of grace, love, compassion and patience. God is a God who reaches out in time of hopelessness to those who are too stupid to seek Him at such times. God is a God who solves mankind’s self-imposed problem at great personal cost to Himself. God is the God of creation; man is a creature of sin; God is man’s Redeemer.

Ah! Thank God for the promises of His grace!

MEDITATION: Messiah ~ Promised

1. INTRODUCTION

In the Northern Hemisphere where the seasons are opposite to ours, they are just entering spring. This is very convenient in talking about Easter and rebirth because the earth seems to be “re-birthing” itself as plants come into bloom, birds cry out to their mates, new leaves appear daily on the limbs of trees and the sun beams forth with a heightened brilliance and warmth.

But, here in the Southern Hemisphere, we are entering autumn. The air becomes cooler, flowers and leaves start to fade and fall and many birds migrate and animals disappear in their holes. There is not much sign of re-birth in the south at Easter time.

So, rather than talk in pleasant spring terms, I think we should think of Easter in terms of how the world seems to be going to sleep as autumn advances. As we consider Easter time in these terms, we see lethargy, doziness, even apathy creeping in. And so, Easter should be a time that tells us to “Wake up!”

Easter should tell us that now is not the times to drift of into a comfort zone that borders on unreality; it is not a time to hibernate and let life carry on without us; it is not a time to take a break from life. Easter is a time when we should wake op; look at ourselves; see what there is in us that needs changing; see what there is that we need to do for the state of our world and the people living in it.

This is apt, you see, because Easter is not a time of apathy on God’s part. It is a time of dramatic action; action that made the world sit up and take notice; action that brought salvation within the reach of those who had descended into the pit of despair due to their sin.

2. THE FALL FROM NEAR-PERFECTION

Our first reading from Genesis comes at the end of creation week. For five days, God has prepared the world for the final act of creation – man.

Man is God’s greatest creation. We see this in the simple fact that, as he looked upon the various stages of creation before the creation of man, what He saw, He simply described as “good.” With man on the scene, however, creation became “very good.” Man made a difference.

And we would expect nothing else because of man’s nature – the image-bearer of God in the world. It is because we are, in some way, like God that we made the world “very good.”

But, sadly, this was not to last. Man sinned and was purged from God’s Garden. He was driven out of Eden and forced to labour by the sweat of his brow to eke out a living. Though there is, no doubt, a remnant of God’s Image in man, that image is corrupted by sin – so much so, in fact, that in some people God’s image is almost unrecognisable!

Through sin, mankind fell from near-perfection to a state of corruption.

3. GOD’S PROMISE

But, at the very moment of the Fall, God reached out in compassion, grace and love. He promised redemption through the crushing of the powers of evil. It is this crushing of the power of evil that we celebrate at Easter time.

But, for Easter to be of any value to us, we need to make it personal. We need to recognise:

So that we are the crowning glory of creation;
So that we have fallen from being the jewel of creation to a position not far above that of other creatures;
So that we have no hope of saving ourselves, because everything we do is corrupted by sin;
So that we, like our forebears, are sinners in need of a saviour;
So that we are in desperate need of God to save us.

If we fail to recognise our fallen nature; if we fail to appropriate God’s promise to the serpent; if we fail to recognise the fulfilment of that promise in the coming of the Messiah, then Easter is a waste of time.

PRAYER:

CLOSING HYMN: Let us with a gladsome mind. [WORDS: John Milton, 1608-74; MUSIC: “Harts”, Benjamin Milgrove, 1732 – 1810]

BENEDICTION:

Three-fold “AMEN”