Gospel

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aftereden
i.
They ran in terror, in fear of their life. They could still see the messenger out of the corner of their eyes hovering just above the ground, barring the entrance to their garden, except, of course, it was no longer theirs’. New thoughts raced through the man’s mind, and nearly made him stumble, and would have, if not for the dread in his heart.

Dread? Terror? Discomfort? he thought to himself. Never. Never before…

His lips still dripped with the sweet taste of the fruit, and his body still dripped with his sweat and the blood of the animal God slaughtered for him and his wife. He noticed how the skin had its old warmth, and how that both comforted and sickened him. He retched on himself, and his hands began trembling violently.

Sickness? Death? Violence? Why? Oh, God, why?

Another thought occurred to the man, and this time, it did stop him. He fell suddenly in great anguish.

“Man!” gasped his wife. “You have fallen! What has happened to you?” she exclaimed, and surprised herself how she felt inconvenienced by his stumbling. She ran to him and kneeled down, finally perceiving that her husband had been hurt. The man shuddered in annoyance under the caress of her hand, as he sobbed deeply.

“You have been… injured?” she asked in amazement. “How?” she began, and then remembered God’s curse. She noticed a small scratch on the man’s right hand.
If man can weep so greatly over such a small wound, how great will our pain be! the woman thought to herself.

“Does the wound…hurt terribly?” she asked, with as much concern for herself as she had for him. The man glanced at his hand, and began to explain, between sobs, what had happened.

“He… is not… here!” he cried, pointing to his head. “He…is not…here!” he repeated, pointing to his chest. “He is not here…” he continued, slumping low into the earth, remembering the day God rescued him from non-existence.

The woman didn’t understand her husband. Then, as if by instinct, she reached out from within her soul towards her Creator to ask Him for understanding, and immediately felt exactly what her husband had been feeling. Nothing. No response. No help. No Presence.

They had been presented with a choice. They could have a life of utter independence and self-reliance, or a life full of trust in God’s infinite love and wisdom. Now they tasted the horrible consequence of their decision. Now they knew the deep cold of selfishness. Now they fully understood His curse. “In the day that you eat from the tree, you will surely die.”
The man and his wife held each other and wept bitterly. They were all they had left to possess now.
“He is not here,” they moaned, wretchedly. “He is not here!”

ii.
The Man stumbled and fell upon the hard, stone covered road. The sound from the mob of people, who He loved desperately, washed over Him like a wave, and made His stomach tighten up and spasm. He retched on Himself, which caused the open wounds on His blood soaked chest to sting. The bitter taste of bile in His mouth made Him gag as His heart seemed to burst from loneliness. He was now the loneliest person in the world.

Why, God? He thought to Himself. Why have You forsa… His thought was interrupted as He stumbled once again. And then, as if by instinct, He cried out to His Father from within His Soul, something He had done from the Beginning. For the first time in all of eternity, there was nothing. No Voice. No Intimacy. No Comfort.

Why, God? He demanded. But He already knew the answer. The Oneness He had always enjoyed was gone. In its place was all the war, all the sadness, all the corruption, all the death.

He finally reached Skull Hill, along with the procession of mockers and mourners. The Roman pierced His wrists to the wood, and then His feet. Hours later, He would remember just one passage from the scrolls after they pierced His feet: “The serpent will sting His heel, but He will crush the serpent’s head.”

As consciousness seeped away, all the anger, all the passion all the violence finally burst out of His mouth, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
The reason why came in a memory from millennia ago.
“Where are you, Adam?” was the question His Father asked, gently.
He became the answer. He slept.

He awoke. Soon His friends would discover an abandoned robe and an empty cave.

“He is not here!” they would exclaim, ecstatically. “He is not here!”

And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”, and the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1Cor. 15:45, NKJV).

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