A casual glance through today’s media, especially social media, reveals something deeply troubling about our culture. Like Cain, we as a people are far too quick to lose our tempers, sulk, and throw tantrums.

• How often have we lashed out or refused to listen to someone we disagree with?

• How often have we felt slighted when people we see as less deserving seem to get more than us?

• How often have we felt personally rejected when our work or our contribution isn’t appreciated as much as what someone else has done?

My guess is that if we’re honest, the answers to those questions are far more often than we care to admit…

… Pain is not normal. Suffering is not part of God’s design. Death and grief were not part of the original plan for creation. We often think of exile and death as a punishment for our sin in the garden, but what if even these were an act of God’s grace… the best gift God could offer to restore us to a right relationship with our Creator?

God knew the consequences of sin and rebellion. God knew that we would misuse our knowledge of good and evil leaving nothing but pain and destruction in our path throughout all human history. God also knew we deserved the consequences we brought on ourselves.

But God still wanted better for us. Had Adam and Eve eaten from the Tree of Life after the fall, they would continue living forever in a broken and evil world. There would never be any freedom from pain and suffering. Wars would truly never cease.

And so, God sent us away. God allowed us to die. Not as a vengeful punishment, but as a means to experience new life. Because the God who allows us to die is the same God who raises the dead to life…

We know we’ve messed up. We know we’re not perfect. But maybe somehow if we can just sew enough fig leaves together to look as good as everybody else, we can go on about our lives without anybody noticing that we are naked. Maybe we can even stamp a designer label on them and all of those people who got their fig leaves second hand at Goodwill might actually be impressed when they see us.

But God is another story. God knows us too well. He knows we forged the label to make ourselves feel better. He can see how bad our sewing is and how hard we are working to keep our leaves from falling off. We cannot hide our fear and anxiety and insecurity and self-doubt. God sees right through the masks we fashion for the rest of the world. We have worn those masks for so long that when we look in the mirror, we may even believe that this is how we really look. But God has seen us without the makeup, without the mask, without the leaves. God knows who we really are even if we have forgotten…

But I’m only human…

How often have we uttered these words?

We as humans are often our own worst critics. We are good at talking down to ourselves. We are good at making excuses for our mistakes, and sometimes even for our intentional sin when we give into seemingly harmless temptations.

But the truth is “only human” should be the highest honor we could receive. In a sense we might say that God himself was the first one to call us “only human”, and he never meant it in a negative way.

As God breathed formed us by hand into his own image and breathed his very breath into our lungs and gave us authority over every other living thing on earth, God gave us the highest honor that one could ever bestow…

Greater than any award… greater than a military or presidential medal, more honor than anyone could possibly bestow on us…

God essentially says – “you are my son… you are my daughter… I made you. I gave you life. I loved you before you ever existed and out of that love I wove every part of you together. What I have created is good… but you, my child…. You are “supremely good”…

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1:5

There was morning and there was evening on the first day…

Wait..

As Willy Wonka says, "Strike that… Reverse It...”

There was EVENING and there was MORNING, the first day.

No, God didn’t get the days backwards. Neither did the writer of Genesis. We did.

What if, just for a minute, we imagine that the day doesn’t actually start in the morning? What if it actually starts at night? Not just at midnight either, when the calendar officially flips in the middle of the night, but actually starts the evening before we even change the calendar at all?

It’s just semantics, one might say. It doesn’t really matter. A day is a day. Twenty-four hours. The sun rise and the sun sets.

But what if it does matter. Imagine for a moment how different life could be… how different God intended life to be…

…The late Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate, often told the story of the “Keeper of the Spring,” about a man who lived in the forest above a quaint Austrian village in the Alps.

The old gentle man had been hired many years earlier by a young town council to clear away the debris from the pools of water that fed the lovely spring flowing through their town. With faithful, silent regularity he patrolled the hills, removed the leaves and branches, and wiped away the silt from the fresh flow of water. By and by, the village became a popular attraction for vacationers. Graceful swans floated along the crystal clear spring, farmlands were naturally irrigated, and the view from restaurants was picturesque.

Years passed. One evening the town council met for its semiannual meeting. As they reviewed the budget, one man's eye caught the salary figure being paid the obscure keeper of the spring. Said the keeper of the purse, "Who is the old man? Why do we keep him on year after year? For all we know he is doing us no good. He isn't necessary any longer!" By a unanimous vote, they dispensed with the old man's services.

For several weeks nothing changed. By early autumn the trees began to shed their leaves. Small branches snapped off and fell into the pools, hindering the rushing flow of water. One afternoon someone noticed a slight yellowish-brown tint in the spring. A couple days later the water was much darker. Within another week, a slimy film covered sections of the water along the banks and a foul odor was detected. The millwheels moved slower, some finally ground to a halt. Swans left as did the tourists. Clammy fingers of disease and sickness reached deeply into the village.

Embarrassed, the council called a special meeting. Realizing their gross error in judgment, they hired back the old keeper of the spring . . . and within a few weeks, the river began to clear up.

This story paints a beautiful picture of the church’s role as keepers of the spring of living water. Sadly, the church tends to act more as a gatekeeper restricting access to those who we deem worthy of a drink. It is as if we feel the need to ration a limited water supply for the sake of our own survival, not recognizing the abundance available to us and to the world in God’s eternal spring. Like the exiles in Jeremiah’s day, we in the church today have “forsaken [God], the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for [ourselves], cracked cisterns that can hold no water.” As it has throughout history, the life-giving water Christ offers will spring forth in the deserts beyond our walls, and even the deserts within our walls…

The methods and locations of God’s encounters with humanity throughout scripture are endless. What they all have in common is that they are acts of God’s gracious initiative. If the church is to live out her mission as a locus of God’s presence or a primary point of access to the spring of living water flowing forth from God’s throne, we must learn to become more aware of God’s presence, especially in the most unexpected places.

Consider the example of Moses. God chooses to be present in the flames of a burning bush on the mountain in the Sinai wilderness. In this way, God takes the initiative to make possible a divine encounter with humanity. Like Jacob, Moses was not seeking an audience with God. In fact, one might say he was running away in fear after having murdered the Egyptian taskmaster. Also like Jacob, Moses found himself in an “in-between space”, which tend to be some of the most “thin places” in our lives. What was required for Moses to encounter God’s presence in this divinely created thin space was paying attention…

Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Jeremiah 29:12-14

The verses above immediately follow one of the most popular and perhaps most misused verses in all of scripture - Jeremiah 29:11. “I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.”

It’s certainly understandable why this sentiment is so beloved. We find it on plaques and cards for graduations, weddings, and countless other significant transitional life-events precisely because we want the assurance that whatever comes next will be a blessing. This verse, on the surface, seems to guarantee that all will go well in our future, no matter what path we may be on.

While this may be true in some cases… even many cases… it is not always true. Jeremiah is not talking about a prosperous career, a sucessful marriage, or even good health and long life. We must remember he is preaching to the exiles in Babylon, and though he gives them hope of a return to their homeland, he is also clear in the rest of the passage that 70 years will pass before this promise is fulfilled. He warns them not to listen to the false prophets we see in chapter 28 who declare that God will break the yokes of Babylon in only 2 years and all will be well. This, Jeremiah says, is not the word of the Lord. Instead, he tells them to settle down in the land where they have been sent; to build homes and families and even grow vineyards in this foreign and seemingly godless culture. Bottom line: “Get comfortable. You’re going to be here awhile.”….

Humanity’s struggle with God’s presence on earth begins in Eden, or rather, just beyond Eden. We stand on the outside of paradise looking in. A flaming sword reminds us that we have been cut off from God’s Holy Presence because we wanted to be in control. From that day forward God has poured everything into bringing humanity back to Eden. The garden is not literally under construction behind a privacy fence somewhere, but everything Eden represents is not only God’s original intent for creation, it is God’s final intent. Old Testament scholar Dr. Sandra Richter boils it down to three words: people, place, and presence. Eden represents the place where the people of God can dwell securely with full access to the loving presence of God who desires to dwell with us.