The Story of Everything Begins...

The following is an excerpt from my book, From the Garden to the Cross. I read the following passage, chapter 2 from the book, in the video above.

You can learn more about the book here.

In the beginning, as an expression of love, God created the heavens and the earth. And inside that universe, he created life that reflected His goodness; humans. 

But corruption seeped in, separating creation from its creator. Sin and Death, through their agent of evil — Satan — entered into this world and co-opted humanity’s first couple (Adam and Eve) as its object of enslavement and participants of its evil. Humanity rejected its destiny and compromised our calling. This darkness persisted in dragging us into the abyss as the resentful son of Adam murdered his brother. 

Humans, lacking an answer to this recurring and intergenerational downward spiral of brokenness, were left with despair, destruction, and death. We were imprisoned by fear of our impending judgment. 

When human heroes pushed back, they could not overcome. This insurmountable evil power corrupted even the best of us. Resistance was futile because, in the end, we were captured in the jaws of Death. And this Death was worse than merely departing from the material world; it was a permanent separation from the one who created us, the one whose image we all bear. 

For some, they held out hope. But for most, this was the inescapable human story. We were on our own, left to a life of resistance and an inevitable and defiant resignation to Death — material and eternal — that awaits us all. Our inherent goodness — of which we defied from whom it came  — was no match for the pervasive corruption we faced. 

Hell on earth spread from the hell inside us all.

Lies.

Theft.  

Lust. 

Contempt. 

Hate. 

Abuse. 

Betrayal. 

Torment. 

Rape. 

Murder. 

Suicide.

War. 

Genocide. 

The tragedy humanity faced was much worse than we saw. It was worse than we realized, even as we sensed its seemingly unending depth. 

But God was not surprised by our defiance of Him and its effects on His world. He expected our fall and the powers that sustained it across time. 

His loving nature acted for our redemption before the universe was even conceived, instead of delivering us to the punishment we deserved. 

The plan of God, a tri-unity of community, was to bear the impossible (for us) burden required to conquer Sin, Death, and Satan, and to completely rectify an alienated humanity into the community of God for all eternity; Love and Justice.

That plan involved God becoming human, beginning this journey as a helpless and vulnerable infant. His earthly life would culminate in a monumental and catalytic sacrificial historical event that would transform the very reality humanity faced. His arrival was prophesied and prepared for through Abraham, Israel, and the history to follow. His liberation of humanity was demonstrated in the deliverance of Israel from the oppressive and hard-hearted Egyptian Pharaoh, even as these people subsequently regressed from freedom into exile. 

Jesus, entering the earth, was the greatest clash of decisive divine purpose against the ruthless forces of Satan, Sin, and Death. The vast cosmic war for the redemption of all people was at its peak. God’s presence among us indicated the seriousness of the situation.

It was in this clash that humanity’s participation in evil would be showcased. The actions of the dark powers would illuminate humanity’s inability to resist and its inclination to participate in the truly horrific. 

They were both the victim and the perpetrator. But, they were in unity against their enemy, God. 

It is in them we find ourselves. 

And in the most opportune of time, civilization’s fate culminated in a critical moment with Jesus of Nazareth — born as a Jew from his mother Mary — in the garden of Gethsemane. It was at this moment that the forces of evil desperately mobilized their spiteful power to stop this mission, a mission that would change everything for everyone, forever.

And there, “…while we [humans] were enemies [of God].”, we enter into this stunning multi-dimensional story of our redemption, From the Garden to the Cross.