It is not easy for me to imagine a perfect world, one as I described in yesterday’s post. Far easier is seeing our world’s brokenness. One look at the news each day tells me things are not good. Wars and rumors of wars. Famine. Earthquakes. Fires. Drought. Hurricanes. Poverty. Pain. Suffering. Hatred. Evil. Death. So to imagine how Adam felt the day the world went from beautiful to broken, to recognize, however long that might have taken, that “this is my fault” isn’t hard for me to do. I blame myself for all sorts of things that carry far less consequences.
What I have trouble imagining are the thoughts of the One Man who fixed what was broken. For though we may be created in God’s image, we are not Him. I am not Him. But I do have access to His Words, and so if you will allow, I would take you on one more journey into imagining what it might have been like to hear that cry for mercy and answer the call.
This time, picture another perfect world, one that might very well have been the original model of the one Adam broke. This world, which still exists, knows no darkness for there is no night there. This world radiates light and love. Beauty is so pure, because love is so pure, that our human eyes can’t comprehend it. Every sense we know on this earth – sight, taste, touch, sound, hearing, intuition, conscience – our heart, soul, mind, spirit, thoughts, strength – everything we can know and understand here can’t even begin to compare to this place. Imagine if you could taste sound? Hear light? Feel taste?
In this place, this perfect world, lived a Father, His Spirit, and His Son. (One God, Three Persons – difficult to understand and harder to explain – so we’ll set that aside for now.) The Bible tells us that together they created the world where Adam lived. As One they created Adam in God’s likeness, His image. The original plan for Adam and the woman, Eve, was to live in harmony with them. To be with them. To eat together. To laugh together, to love with the purest of loves, and to lavish on them every good thing they could possibly enjoy.
But when the man broke their trust, the chords clashed, and the world tilted, and the pieces fell to the earth…like shards of glass, like water spilled that can’t be gathered up again.
And Adam’s cry, his heart-felt plea for mercy, for forgiveness, carried all the way to that pure, unadulterated world where the Creator lived.
The Father and Son and Spirit knew it was coming. Can you imagine the looks that passed between them? Can you imagine the love that saw the future, that saw the pain and death that was coming, that saw the Son’s own agonizing sacrifice that would be needed to fix it all?
And chose to do it anyway?
Oh such mercy!
A perfect man did the ONE thing that could ruin life for every creature on earth. That perfect man, Adam, made in God’s image, could not undo death. And ever since, despite our best efforts, no other image-bearer could either.
But another perfect man could and did. That perfect man was God Himself, not just the image of God. A man who could undo death by conquering it through his life, his death, and his power over both when he rose from the grave.
To fix our broken lives. To fix our lostness, our bitterness, our grief, our devastating feelings of aloneness…even the evil intent of our hearts.
He did it for mercy.
He did it for love.
To restore what one man had broken.
And fixed it for eternity for those who will let Him.
Selah~
