"He Will Crush Your Head"
![[Image: “Virgin Mary Consoles Eve.” Crayon and pencil by Sister Grace Remington, OCSO, 2003, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey.]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d70f59aefca59000162e4e6/1579143012644-10Y0SEYS07R5NQWCG1RS/tumblr_nudb6u53As1qfvq9bo1_r1_1280.jpg)
[Image: “Virgin Mary Consoles Eve.” Crayon and pencil by Sister Grace Remington, OCSO, 2003, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey.]
As part of the curse that the Lord God pronounces over the serpent, we read:
“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.—Genesis 3:15
What does this mean?
God is here saying that a child of the woman will one day defeat the serpent, though he will be wounded in the process.
In other words, it’s a messianic prophecy: it is exactly what happens with Jesus, who defeats Evil by being crucified.
SO GREAT! Thank you, Jesus!
Speaking of great, how about that picture above? Be sure to look at Mary’s feet.
Today’s Scripture
Toxic Masculinity
It’s risky in our current cultural climate to comment publicly on the differences between the sexes, but I guess I’m in a foolish mood, because that’s exactly what I want to do. See, I still hold onto the shocking belief that men and women are different: not different in value or intelligence or courage or any other virtue, but nevertheless different in more ways than just our physical bodies.
For example, I think men and women usually face different temptations. This is not to say that men always face certain temptations and women never face those same temptations, but that usually this is how things are.
That being said:
I think passivity is the primal temptation in the heart of man.
In Eden after the Fall, the man tries to pin the blame on the woman, and then onto God:
“The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Now, blame-shifting and a refusal to take responsibility is certainly a part of human nature (the woman doesn't hesitate to claim the serpent tricked her), but I’m wondering if passivity is more often found on the male side of the species than the female.
Think about a problem in your family, or the family next door: my suspicion is that, more often than not, a passive male in the family is the root of that problem.
Passivity can take two equal and opposite forms:
the obvious form—lazy, unmotivated, weak-willed;
but it can also take the opposite form: controlling, domineering, violent.
Both forms are the two sides of the same passive coin.
The opposite of passivity is responsibility.
This modern concept of “toxic masculinity” is often focused on the second form passivity takes. See, a passive man places himself in the center of his world and demands that everyone else meet his needs in the way he wants them met. This passivity often takes the form of violence and coercion, but it is still passive, since it’s about his refusal to take responsibility for himself and his anger that the world won’t work the way he wants it to.
The opposite of passivity is not domination, but responsibility. Responsibility is not controlling, but loving.
I don’t know any woman personally who wants to be controlled by the various men in her life, but at the same time I don’t think I know a single woman personally who doesn’t want the men in her life to exercise more responsibility.
I think one of our social problems—part of the so-called “Crisis of Masculinity”—is that men in our culture are forcing women to carry a double load of responsibility—the woman’s own responsibility, as well as shouldering the man’s responsibility, too. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not talking about gender roles in the household or things like that. Rather, I’m talking about the basic responsibilities that human flourishing requires:
accepting the idea that no one owes you anything;
believing that nothing in life comes without a cost;
understanding that the most important relationships require sacrificial commitment;
knowing that delaying gratification is a necessary skill.
For reasons I don’t understand, women seem more ready than men (broadly speaking) to accept those hard, necessary responsibilities and to move forward. This is not to say that women don’t also struggle with passivity, but just that passivity seems to be more of a fundamental temptation in the hearts of men.
Taking responsibility, of course, means that you can’t point fingers at another person: it is only about you, and your choices, reactions, and results. Where are you failing to take responsibility?
Or, I guess I should say: where am I?
Today’s Scripture
A Close Look at the Fall of Man
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.
What do we know about the serpent?
He was made by God;
He is a beast, i.e., not a man;
He is wise. The other times the Hebrew word “arum” is used in the Bible, it has a positive sense, like “prudent” or “clever.” Here, the serpent is using his wisdom to undermine the harmony of God’s creation.
So, who is the serpent? Some kind of spiritual being who is in rebellion against God. Putting together what we learn from the rest of the Bible, we can see that the serpent is the devil, who is some kind of fallen angel.
We are totally free in our actions, and totally accountable for our actions. But it is also true that there is a dark power that tempts and trips and teases us into making the wrong choice. Who among us has not felt it? If you have ever given over to sudden, snarling rage, for example, you know exactly what I’m talking about: you made the choice to be angry, but there was also a strong pull towards anger, as if something were urging you on.
He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Notice how the serpent insidiously flips around what God actually said.
Rather than focusing on ALL the trees that God gave the man and the woman, the serpent draws her attention to the ONE tree that’s forbidden.
Whenever we focus on what we lack rather than on what we have, we are imitating the devil’s voice, so to speak.
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
The serpent’s work is already bearing fruit:
Although the woman correctly states that God gave the humans the trees in the garden for food, note how she nevertheless focuses on the prohibition, and even intensifies it, as God, as far as we know, has not forbidden them to touch the fruit.
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
As we will shortly see, it is literally true that they do not drop dead when they eat from the tree, but it is the case that their innocence immediately dies, and, once lost, can never be regained. And, literal death inevitably follows. The serpent cleverly mixes in just enough truth to bait the woman.
The devil is a liar. Don’t ever believe what he says.
And here’s the other thing: the man and the woman already are like God. What do we read on page one of the Bible?
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
So, the serpent tricks the woman into forgetting what God has already given her, namely his own image.
See what’s at stake when you focus on what you lack rather than on what you possess? You end up totally forgetting the most important things about you.
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.
Although God’s prohibition was as clear as possible, the woman decides that she knows best and reaches out and takes and eats the fruit. She is “wise in her own eyes.”
She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
I’m convinced that passivity is the primal temptation of men.
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.
They were beguiled by the serpent’s prediction that they would become god-like, but the only result of their sin is their awareness of their own shame.
Sin always works that way: promises the world, and delivers woe.
Today’s Scripture
What is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is deciding for oneself, independently, what is right or wrong in one’s own eyes.
In the middle of Eden, therefore, the man and the woman face a choice: obey the Lord God and trust and accept that what the Lord God says is good or bad is good or bad, or else decide for themselves what is good or bad. Later in the Bible in the Book of Judges, this will be described as “doing what is right in their own eyes.”
You can see how this choice had to be present in Eden: since God made the man free, the man was free to trust God, or not. The man was free to obey, and free to disobey.
He made his choice.
(And so have we all.)
Today’s Scripture
Breath of Life
Man is created out of the dust.
Today, we know how to specifically identify the various components that make up a living body—carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, etc.—but the Bible’s ancient words still suffice: we are made of dust.
It’s not what our bodies are made of, however, that gives them life; what gives us life and sustains our lives is the breath of God himself.
Every time you take a breath, you are receiving God’s breath. Yes, the air you inhale contains oxygen, but oxygen alone won’t make a dead body live—it’s God’s Spirit that does that.
This is why praise is therefore such an appropriate act: when we praise God it is the very breath we receive from God that makes our praises possible. God gives to us, and then we give back to him.
Take time today to breathe. And praise God for it.
Today’s Scripture
The Seventh Day
The keeping of the Sabbath made Israel distinct, but the Creation account tells us clearly that the Sabbath day actually precedes Israel: there is a Sabbath from the very beginning of everything.
The Sabbath does not depend on a celestial calendar; the cycles of the moon or the stars have no bearing on the Sabbath: it just comes every seven days, no matter what.
On the Sabbath, the people of God rest, because God rested, and when the people of God rest, they are showing with their lives that they trust God to provide for them. Every seven days there is a reminder: God provides, and he can be trusted.
Keeping Sabbath Today
There is much more to discuss about this topic than I have time for in this post, but I would like to say something provocative: I’m beginning to think Christians should keep the Sabbath today. I don’t think Sunday worship is the same as Sabbath, and though I understand why the early Christians got away from the Sabbath—they wanted to show that a person is saved because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and not in the keeping of the Jewish Law—I think we should think hard about reclaiming it.
In practice, keeping the Sabbath would mean that Christians would deliberately structure their Saturdays to be about family and friends and celebration. No work would be done—no emails, no shopping, no yard work, no tax returns. Instead, we would have folks over for dinner, go to the park, read, play board games, go for walks, etc.
Can you imagine how America would change for the better if the Christians started keeping Sabbath?
Just as an experiment, why don’t you try it this Saturday?
Let me know how it goes.
Today’s Scripture
The Sixth Day
In Genesis 1, something is “good” when it is fit for its purpose and able to function properly, or when it is complete. Therefore, the seas are not declared good on Day Two because God isn’t finished with them until Day Three, when, after they are gathered together and the dry land has been uncovered, he declares them good.
On Day Six, after God has created everything, we read:
“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” [Genesis 1:31]
All of creation is “very good” because every part works together—it is complete. I like how Umberto Cassuto puts it:
“An analogy might be found in an artist who, having completed his masterpiece, steps back a little and surveys his handiwork with delight, for both in detail and in its entirety it had emerged perfect from his hand.”
—Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part 1: Adam to Noah, 59
However, as I pointed out on Sunday, man himself is NOT specifically declared good after his creation on Day Six. Why? Because he is not yet complete or fit for his purpose.
I would like you to reflect on what Leon Kass has to say about this. It is dense, but worth it.
“A moment’s reflection shows that man as he comes into the world is not yet good. Precisely because he is the free being, he is also the incomplete or indeterminate being; what he becomes depends always (in part) on what he freely will choose to be. Let me put it more pointedly: precisely in the sense that man is in the image of God, man is not good—not determinate, finished, complete, or perfect. It remains to be seen whether man will become good, whether he will be able to complete himself (or to be completed).
“Man’s lack of obvious goodness or completeness, metaphysically identical with his freedom, is, of course, the basis also of man’s moral ambiguity. As the being with the greatest freedom of motion, able to change not only his path but also his way, man is capable of deviating widely from the way for which he is most suited or through which he—and the world around him—will most flourish.
“The rest of the biblical narrative elaborates man’s moral ambiguity and God’s efforts to address it, all in the service of making man ‘good’—complete, whole, holy.”
—Leon Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, 39
Now, go back and read that long quotation again. It’s important.
It is precisely our freedom that makes us incomplete. Unlike all the other creatures, we are free to choose good or choose evil, and, left to ourselves, we will inevitably make the wrong choice. We are not yet fit for our purpose, i.e., to rule over the earth and to reflect God’s image.
The rest of the story of the Bible is about how God plans to fix us.
Today’s Scripture
The Fifth Day
The NIV translation lets us down a bit in its translation of Day Five. In v. 21 in our translation, we read of “the giant creatures of the sea.” However in Hebrew, the text literally speaks of “sea monsters.”
Why does this matter? You and I know that what ancient peoples called “sea monsters” are only the marvelous and mysterious creatures that God put in the deep seas—whales and the like. The Israelites were not a seafaring people, and were terrified of the Deep, but even ancient mariners had only the briefest of glimpses of these majestic animals. The nations surrounding Israel spoke of dark powers at work in the seas and sacrificed to the sea monsters to keep them safe on their maritime voyages.
How foolish, says Genesis 1—everything in the seas was made by God, even the sea monsters. Don’t worship the sun, and don’t worship the sea monsters, says the Bible.
God is so creative: He even made the whales!
Today’s Scripture
The Fourth Day
The sun (and with it the moon and the stars) is not created until Day Four. But, how can this be, since we’ve already had light and morning and evening since Day One (not to mention plant life since Day Three)? Isn’t the sun required for these things to take place?
Ancient peoples knew more from personal experience about the sun, the moon, and the stars than we do—the movements of the heavenly bodies were part of their intimate, daily experience, whereas we spend very few nights of our lives out of doors—and they certainly understood that you can’t have morning and evening without the sun. The strange detail of God waiting to create the sun until Day Four is yet another indication that Genesis 1 is not trying to give us scientific knowledge as to how things were created, other than to say that God is clearly the cause and Creator of everything. Rather, one of the things Genesis 1 is trying to tell us is that nothing in all of creation is divine, and therefore nothing in all of creation should be worshipped. The sun has been worshipped widely since the earliest days of humanity; Genesis 1 makes it clear that this is foolish idolatry: only God is worthy of worship.
I doubt very much that any of us literally worships the sun, but I am certain that many of us struggle with idolatry, which is the sin of thinking that the things God made (money, sex, power, possessions) are more important to our lives than God himself.
Today’s Scripture
The Third Day
As we read yesterday, on the Second Day God separates the upper waters from the lower waters, but the day ends with the lower waters still covering what will turn out to be the land. On the Third Day, God commands all of the lower waters to be gathered into one place; the gathered waters are called “seas,” and the exposed ground is called “land.” Imagine holding in your hands a plastic basin, halfway filled with water, and then tilting it slightly so that the water moves toward one end of the basin, leaving the other end high and dry. This is what’s happening here on Day Three.
Then, once the dry land has been uncovered by the waters, God commands it to be fruitful and it begins to produce seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees. The reason the seeds and fruit are mentioned is because these sorts of plants can continue to reproduce and perpetuate themselves on their own, without requiring cultivating by humans.
Jesus told his followers to “consider the lilies.” I wonder today if we should take him literally and really contemplate the flowering plants and fruit trees (or their produce) that will come across our paths today.
If you come across an apple or an orange or a tulip today, really look at it and then praise God for it. It will be good for your soul to do so.
Today’s Scripture
The Second Day
When God begins to create, all that’s there is a watery mess of nothingness—chaos. So, after he creates Light on Day One, God begins to bring order to the waters of chaos, and he does so by first separating the waters into upper waters—”sky” or “heavens”—and lower waters, which (we learn on Day Three) are covering the land. He separates the waters above and the waters below with a “firmanent”—a strange Hebrew word that means a hammered-out, flat, hard thing. (Think huge manhole cover or piece of hard glass, like a gigantic car’s windshield.)
So, the ancient Israelites believed that the sky was this hard firmament which got its blue color from the waters above it. From time to time, the firmament’s windows would open and would release the waters above onto the land below (which is uncovered on Day Three)—in other words, rain.
Now, we “know” that the sky is not hard, and that the space beyond our atmosphere is not actually liquid, but Genesis is not trying to provide a scientific understanding of reality, but a moral and theological understanding. So, think about it: the amazing thing about the universe is not only that it exists, but that is has a form and a shape and is intelligible—it has meaning. That’s what God did—he made something out of nothing, and gave it a meaningful order. Today, no matter where you are in the universe, the laws of physics still apply. That consistency and intelligibility doesn’t have to be there, but that’s how God made things to be.
Today, he still does that. Why not pray that God makes this day meaningful to you?
Today’s Scripture
The First Day
There is one God, and he made everything.
There is nothing that God did not make. In ancient times people worshipped sun, moon, stars; in modern times we worship sex, money, success. This is foolish, because everything we can see has been created and is therefore not worthy of worship; only God should be worshiped. If you worship something created rather than the Creator, it will not go well with you. To worship something is to make it your source of strength and hope; that which you most admire—that’s what you worship. As we begin 2020, what or whom do you need to put in its appropriate place in your life?
And what this God does is bring order out of chaos.
When God begins to create, note that the Bible starts to describe what God does, not with literal nothing—absolute non-being, which is impossible for humans to understand, both then and now—but with the basic building blocks of reality—a wild waste, a deep churning chaos, a swirling ocean of the blackest night. Even in the Bible, the true beginning of everything is shrouded in mystery. So here, it’s not that there is nothing but rather that what’s there is unformed. It’s like saying you are in the middle of nowhere—the something that’s there has not yet been turned into anything useful, so we call it nothing. God takes the wild waste of chaos and begins to make it into something. God’s activity is always to bring order out of chaos—think of the healings of Jesus, who brings order and stability into crazed, wild minds. God takes messes and brings meaning out of them. As we begin 2020, what mess do you need to ask God to make into something meaningful?
Please share these posts with anyone who will find them useful. We will read slowly through Genesis, weekdays only, finishing on Friday, April 10. I post each day’s devotional/commentary/thought at 3:30 AM on my blog, and send each post via email at 4:00 AM.
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Today’s Scripture
Written That You May Believe
We’ve been reading the Gospel of John for 2 months, and reading the Gospels since January 1. This is why:
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
May God use your reading to bring you life in 2020!
P.S. I’m not going to write a post on John’s epilogue, which we read on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Check back Wednesday for our 1st post in reading Genesis,
Today’s Scripture
Why I Love Simon Peter
When Mary Magdalene tells Simon Peter and the beloved disciple that she’s seen the Risen Jesus, he doesn’t believe her—would you?—but he runs to the tomb anyway.
That’s why I love Peter: if there is even the smallest chance it could be true, he wants to investigate it for himself.
Today’s Scripture
Christmas and the Cross
Jesus was born to die. Christmas was always going to end on the Cross.
For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, my thoughts on the Gospel of John are summed up in the sermon below.
Merry Christmas, everyone. May the knowledge Christ came to die make your Christmas celebrations all the more precious.
Scripture Readings for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Barabbas
The Greek word that John uses in 18:40 to describe Barabbas can mean “robber,” but it can also mean “revolutionary” or “insurrectionist.” We learn from Mark and Luke that Barabbas was a murderer as well. In other words, Barabbas had been arrested by the Romans because he was trying to overthrow Roman rule.
And what happens? Barabbas is freed, and Jesus is crucified.
Pontius Pilate releases a murderer and crucifies an innocent man.
Today’s Scripture
Jesus Walked Here The Last Night of His Life
I filmed the video below earlier this year by the excavations of the high priest’s house in Jerusalem. Jesus actually walked on these stones!
(By the way, I’m going to be taking another trip to Israel in January-February 2021. [In an earlier version I wrote 2020!] Stay tuned for more info.)
Today’s Scripture
Gethsemane
John just tells us Jesus was arrested in a garden; Matthew and Mark tell us its name: Gethsemane.
The Garden of Gethsemane is at the foot of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (I’ve been there.) In the cross-section map of Jerusalem below, Gethsemane is where the red X is.
Gethsemane means “oil press” in Hebrew. It’s the place at the bottom of the Mount of Olives where the olives were pressed into oil to use in lamps, etc.
It’s also the place where Jesus was pressed, and his suffering produced light, too.
Today’s Scripture
One Prayer for One People
I really believe that the most important thing that the people of Munger can do in our time is to be united in one heart, passionately praying and expecting for God to do something amazing.
(I believe the same for the larger Body of Christ.)
This, after all, was Jesus’s prayer on the last night of his life:
“Father, I pray that they might be one as we are one” (John 17:21).
So, for the last few months I’ve been pushing us to unite around a simple two word prayer:
Today, Lord!
For me, those 2 words sum up all I want to say:
Lord, we know what you’ve done in the past—please do it again in our day, TODAY!
Lord, we know you have your own timetable, but we’re boldly asking you to do it now, TODAY.
Lord, we are grateful TODAY for all that you have done, are doing, and will do.
Today, Lord!
Today’s Scripture
How to Deal With Pain and Suffering--My Favorite Bible Verse
It’s the last few minutes Jesus will have with his disciples before his death, and so he teaches them about how to deal with fear and suffering:
“Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” [John 16:20-22]
Suffering and fear are only temporary. God is at work, using pain for a purpose. I think Jesus’s metaphor of a woman in labor is a powerful one; when the future comes, we’ll look back on past pain and find it all was worth it: what God is going to do will be that good.
This is a great passage overall, but what Jesus has to say at the end has become my favorite Bible verse:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus is telling us two things about life:
Trouble in life is inevitable, so don’t be surprised when it comes: just accept it;
Trouble in life is temporary, so don’t lose heart!
Today’s Scripture