Trust and Sorrow

To meander around in the Garden of Eden narrative is to walk in mystery as old as creation.  There is one of the most profound expressions of disappointment on the part of the Lord God that is recorded in the whole of the Word.  In verse 13 of chapter 3 when the horror of the moment is revealed in the fading light of the day, we hear the Voice speaking and asking with great sorrow, "What is this that you have done?" 

The divine sorrow can, perhaps, be partially understood as we consider the great trust the Lord God had placed upon the created ones who shared life with Him in this Garden.  It represented a piece of creation entrusted to Adam.  He was to till it and care for it.  This one spoken of as the first of creation was also given authority to name every other living creature which shared the dirt of his DNA.  "So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal...and every bird...and brought them to the man to see what he would call them..."  (Genesis 2:19)  A partnership was established by the Creator with the created.  It was a partnership based on trust and faithfulness. 

 

The Genesis story is not just about origins and beginnings, but also about divine trust and the breaking of that trust on the part of the created one.  The depth of the trust is somehow given expression in the greatness of the sorrow as the partnership lays in ruins midst the glory of the Garden called Eden.  When the couple who knew the Garden as home were driven from it because of their own willfulness, they became sojourners on a broken road that they had no power to mend and fix.  We have all seen them on this road we share with them.  And, like them, we are dependent on the Lord God to make a way for us to once again live inside His trust.