The first Advent didn’t start when Mary had an encounter with an Angel. It started when Eve had an encounter with a serpent.
The Lord had a habit of walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. He walked and talked with them as friends. They were comfortable in their garden home even though they were naked. While God walked with Adam and Eve, Satan slithered around as a cunning serpent.
The serpent sidelined Eve, caught her alone and told her stories. Fabricated lies. A real propaganda campaign! The cunning snake asked Eve “Did God really say you shall not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
Really?
He was setting Eve up to fall using a technique called “Drawing the Yes”. It’s a conversational technique designed to get a person on your side. You ask them a question where the answer is an obvious yes. Having said yes once makes them more willing to agree with you in the next question.
“Of course we can eat from the trees in the garden,” she quipped. Can you see the eyeroll? She went on. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat” They were not even allowed to touch it or Gold told them they would die.
Did Satan die? I would argue he was already dead, cast out of Heaven due to his own pride and revealed to be an habitual liar.
The Bible said Eve was impressed by that tree and its fruit. She wanted the wisdom of knowing good and evil. She took it, ate it and shared it with Adam. A sin shared is a sin doubled. Immediately, Adam and Eve sinned. For the first time, they experienced shame, deception and blame. They lost their closeness with God and they hurt each other.
13 Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”
“The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”
14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, you are cursed
more than all animals, domestic and wild.
You will crawl on your belly,
groveling in the dust as long as you live.
15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike[a] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”Genesis 3:13-15
God cast them out because he couldn’t have sin in His perfect presence. He cursed the serpent and told him that Eve’s son, the Son of Man, would crush his head. It was with a curse that the Father pronounced a blessing – the greatest blessing of all. He wasn’t just planning vengeance for his enemy, the Lord was planning to give us the power to crush the serpent’s head too – just like Jesus did.
Holy Father God,
Since before the beginning of time you had a plan for us to follow Jesus and to win the victory over sin and death. Even then, in the Garden of Eden, you told us that small seed, the off spring of Eve, would crush the serpent’s head.
Hallelujah and Amen!
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