The Parents of the Savior

Today is Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent. Many Christians take this time to give something up as they prepare for Holy Week and Easter. I don't always do that, but I respect people who do. I think it is important to consider what Christ went through for us. I wrote this poem October 4, 2004, as I reflected on these things, and in particular, how it may have been for Mary and Joseph. The poem was also inspired by the songs "Mary, Did You Know?" by Mark Lowry, "Child of the Manger, Child of the Cross" by Craig Courtney, and "One Quiet Moment" by Bob Kauflin. These songs got me thinking more about how events throughout the Bible were connected.

Image by R. Gino Santa Maria
Adobe Stock

In a humble stable,
A young mother held her newborn baby in her arms
Did the joyful coos make her think
Of the same mouth speaking the stars into place?
Did she realize that the same lips
Spoke to Moses on the mountain
And did she know that one day
They would beg the Father to forgive His enemies?

In a foreign land,
A young couple taught their child how to walk
Did the crawling, toddling legs
Make them think of the same legs
Walking with Adam and Eve in the paradise of the garden?
Did they remember that those legs crushed the Tower of Babel
And that one day those ankles would be pierced
With long, cruel nails?

In a small village,
A father taught his son the art of carpentry
Did those little hands make him think
Of the same hands writing on tablets of stone
And on the wall of a palace?
Did he remember that those hands
Sprinkled manna over a desert
And that one day those wrists would be impaled
With nails bigger than the ones He was hammering into the wood?

Did they know that the back that dazzled Moses
Would one day be ruthlessly beaten
And forced to bear a heavy and slivery cross?
Did they realize that the breath that breathed life into Adam
And blew the waters of the Red Sea apart
Would one day breathe, "It is finished!" and slowly, painfully cease?

***

On a skull-shaped hill,
A mother watched her son die on a cross
She heard Him entrust her to the care of a friend
Did she know what she and her son's friend
Would find three days later?
Did she know that burial spices would be useless
And that her son would refuse to stay dead?

As she agonized over the suffering of her beloved son,
Did she know that the face so mangled and torn
Would so soon be glowing with life?
Did she know that those hands, dripping with blood,
Would so soon be raised in victory?

Did she realize that the love that saved the children of Israel

    The love that gave Jonah another chance
    The love that fed five thousand
    And brought the dead back to life --
Did she realize that that love led Him to pour out His wrath on Himself
To save her very soul?

Did she know that His death would be the shortest-lived death
And that by it He conquered death and sin
Once and for all?

That magnificent head is lifted on high
Crowned with glory and honor and splendor!
All hail the omnipotent King
Who was willing to give up His life and so conquer death
That we may reign forever as His beloved children!

Trouble in Paradise

It was the sixth day. God had done a lot the past few days, and He was almost done with His big project. He just had one thing left to do. He had made the land animals earlier in the day, and now it was time for the final touch. He took some dust from the ground and formed it into a man. Then He breathed life into the new man. In Hebrew, they have a word for “man”… Adam!

God put the man Adam in a beautiful garden. Brightly-colored parrots flew from tree to tree. A river flowed through the garden, and fish swam in the water, jumping and playing as they went. Peacocks showed their feathers, while dogs and cats played among the trees. The trees! They had some amazing fruits! Apples, plums, mangoes… The peaches and kiwi fruits tasted amazing! Right in the middle of the garden, God planted two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Water from the rivers and streams watered the trees, and Adam didn’t have to worry about keeping the plants watered. But God did tell him to take care of the garden. About the trees, God gave Adam some very specific instructions: “See all these trees? Help yourself to whatever you want! Any fruit from any tree is cool to eat. Well, all except one. Don’t eat anything from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. That fruit will kill you!”

God gave Adam an amazing job. He got to name each of the animals! A big gray animal lumbered by. “I think I’ll call that…an elephant!” said Adam. Then a very tall animal walked by. “Definitely a giraffe.” Adam looked down at the ground and saw a little bitty creature and said, “Hmm…I think I’ll call that an ant.” Then a bigger animal with a long snout came by and ate the ant. Well, obviously that needed to be called an anteater. Just then, he heard a bark, and a strange creature came bounding up to him, its tongue out and its tail wagging like crazy. “Aw, that’s a good dog!” said Adam. “Hey, I like it! You’re a dog.” An expectant meow came from another animal nearby, and Adam turned to see a creature licking its paws. “That would be a cat,” he said. Nearby, there was a bigger animal chewing grass. Adam decided to call it a cow, and another animal that ran by became known as a horse. A sleek, smooth creature jumped out of the water and back in, just long enough for Adam to decide that looked like it could be called a fish. The newly-named eagles proudly soared over the trees, while a small green creature with four legs and a long tail crept up to the man just in time to be called a lizard. It went on like this until all the animals had names.

But there was still something missing. Adam needed a helper. God made the man fall asleep, and while he was sleeping, God had a surprise up His sleeve. He took one of Adam’s ribs and turned it into a woman. Adam was impressed! She was beautiful! She soon got a name that meant “living”: Eve. She would be the mother of all living people.

But there was one animal that was very sneaky. One day it slithered up to Eve and said, “Ssso, did God really sssay you ssshouldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?”

“Nope!” said Eve. “He said we could eat any fruit in the garden, except for one tree in the middle. He says the fruit from that one tree will kill us.”

“Oh come on,” said the snake. “Kill you? Nahhh! It’sss called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for a reasssson. If you eat the fruit, you’ll know good and evil. Then you’ll be like God! Plusss, jussst look at it! Doesssn’t it look ssscrumptiousss?”

Eve looked at the tree. The snake had a point. It did look pretty amazing. Also, she wanted to learn more. Ah, why not? It’s just one fruit! So she picked a fruit and took a bite. It was delicious beyond words! She shared it with Adam and he took a bite. They closed their eyes and savored the flavor. This was incredible! When they opened their eyes, they noticed something for the first time: They weren’t wearing anything! Well, that’s embarrassing. They quickly grabbed some fig leaves and sewed them together to make some clothes.

Then they heard God walking in the garden. Uh-oh, busted. So they did what anyone would do in their situation. They hid. Finally, God said, “Where are you?” (Of course, He knew exactly where they were.)

So Adam said, “I heard you in the garden, but I was scared because I wasn’t wearing anything! So I hid.”

“Who told you that?” God said. “Did you eat from the one tree I told you not to eat from?”

Then Adam replied, “Don’t look at me! This woman you put here with me gave me a fruit! What was I to do?”

So God asked Eve, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Don’t look at me!” she replied. “The snake tricked me into eating it!”

So God had a sad task to do. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but because they had disobeyed His one command, there needed to be consequences. The woman would have children, but when they were being born, it would be very painful. The man would have to work the ground to get food, but it would be very tough. Weeds and thorns would get in the way. Prickly thistles would be a constant annoyance. Someday, he would become dust again, since he had been made out of the dust. The snake would slither on the ground and eat dust.

So God made clothes for Adam and Eve and kicked them out of the garden. Just to make sure they couldn’t get back in, God stationed an angel at the entrance to guard it.

But out of all that horrible news God had for them, there was one good thing. Yes, from then on life would be really tough. Men would have to plow the ground and battle thorns and thistles. Yes, women would have unimaginable pain when giving birth. Yes, as a result of this first sin, people would continue to sin. But someday, a descendent of the woman would come and put an end to the tempter’s evil trickery. This descendent would crush the snake’s head, but the snake would bite.

Many thousands of years later, a descendent of Adam and Eve came along, just as God promised. The snake, also known as Satan, was crushed on a hill outside Jerusalem as Jesus gave His life on the cross to save us. So Satan bit by killing Jesus, but Jesus crushed Satan’s head by rising from the dead. Someday Jesus will come back and finish the job.

As Jesus’ apostle John would one day end his last book recorded in the Bible, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”

Adam and Eve

© Steven Sauke

Sketch, Coloring Page

Creation

Nothing. There was nothing there. Just empty nothingness. So God decided to do something about it. He made outer space and the earth, but the earth was very different than it is today. It was empty and watery and very dark. Darkness is OK sometimes, but this was too dark. So God said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” Ah, that was better! God separated the light and the darkness, and He loved it! He called the light day and the darkness night. A lot of important stuff happened that first day.

The next day, God continued His big project. He decided to separate the water. Some of the water stayed below, and some of it went up. He called the space between the waters sky.

The third day, things got really interesting. God decided to gather the water below together, and pretty soon, stuff came out of the water. It dried up, and He called it land. He called the water sea. Now that was cool! Then God said, “OK, now let’s grow some plants!” So grass and trees grew. New bushes sprouted up. Pine trees climbed into the sky and grew cones. Flowers bloomed. Apple trees came up. Palm trees spread out their long and feathery branches and grew fruits like coconuts and dates. Every kind of plant and tree you can think of grew out of the ground. Many of them had fruits. This was super cool!

Next day, God said, “OK, time to separate the lights in the sky.” So He separated the day from the night. He made the stars. One star in particular, the sun, would shine on the earth during the day, and its light would shine on a smaller ball in the sky, the moon, to provide light during the night. God was really excited about this new development.

So the fifth day dawned. Now that the land, the sea, the light and the plants were ready, it was time for God to create more life. Fish swam in the sea. Birds flew through the air and perched in the trees. Eagles soared above it all, while sea anemone and coral grew underwater, and the clownfish swam in and out of them. Jellyfish floated in the water. Octopi walked across the ocean floor on all eight legs. Pterodactyls flew overhead. Doves and blackbirds excitedly got to know their new lives and habitats.

Then came the sixth day. God wasn’t done making animals. He had made animals to fill the sea and the sky the day before, but now it was time to make animals on land. Dogs and cats chased each other while elephants trumpeted, bears and lions roared, insects scurried around, horses neighed and cows mooed. T-rexes chased their prey, and giraffes and brontosauruses reached high into the trees to find the most delicious leaves. Snakes slithered, and worms burrowed in the ground. This was awesome!

But there was still something missing. God said, “OK, time to make people! They’ll look like Me!” So God made a man and a woman. He told them to take care of the land and the animals, the sea and the sky. They were allowed to eat the fruit and leaves from the plants and the meat from the animals.

God looked at this whole big work of art He had made those first six days, and it was great!

So the sun set, and when it rose the next day, God rested. The past week had been a lot of work, and He needed to take a break.

The Tower of Babel

Proverbs 16:18

Pride goes before destruction

    a haughty spirit before a fall

Questions:

Have any of you learned any languages besides English? Which ones?

Have you tried talking to someone who doesn’t speak English? How did it feel? Did you figure out a way to communicate?

***

In 6 days, God created the earth and everything in it. The first two people He made were Adam and Eve, and they lived in a beautiful garden. God told them that they could eat anything from any of the trees except for one. For a while, they did a good job of obeying that command, but eventually, when the devil tempted them, they disobeyed and ate the fruit of the one tree they weren’t allowed to eat from. That made God very sad, and He had to throw them out of the garden because of it. They had children. Their son Cain was jealous of his younger brother Abel, and let’s just say he overreacted. At any rate, Abel didn’t survive. The first generation was guilty of disobedience, and the second generation was guilty of murder. Things were going downhill fast! Adam and Eve had a third son, whom they named Seth. They also had other children, but we don’t know what their names were. As more generations came along, people got worse and worse. They worshiped idols. They killed people. They did many other horrible things, and finally, several generations later, God had had enough. He caused a huge flood that wiped out everyone but one family and at least two of every animal. Noah and his family were the only ones who followed God, and He had Noah build a boat to save humans and animals.

He had three sons, named Shem, Ham and Japheth, who came with him on the boat. After the flood, Noah’s family started to grow. Ham had four sons. You may not have heard of his sons, but you’ve probably heard of some of the nations they and their descendants founded. Their names were Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan. Cush had a son named Nimrod, who was a powerful king, and he built many cities. You may have heard of Babylon and Nineveh. Those and many others were his handiwork.

At this point, the people had again begun to multiply, and there were lots and lots of them. But they all spoke the same language. People started moving eastward, and they settled in a land called Shinar. Then they decided to build a city. Not just any city. This one would have a tower, and they decided it would be super tall. It should be the tallest building anyone had ever built, and it would reach up into the sky. It would be so tall that people from miles around would be amazed, and they would know how awesome these people were.

So they set to work. They made their own bricks and started construction. God was watching, though, had He had some problems with this. Everybody spoke the same language, and they thought awfully highly of themselves. Too highly. If this kept up, they would be able to do almost anything they set their mind to do, good or bad, and they wouldn’t bother looking to God, who provided what they needed to survive.

So God came up with a plan. Something that had never happened before.

One day, the people were working hard. The leaders were yelling commands at the workers. People talked to each other, and they started noticing something weird. Ils ne purent plus se comprendre.

« Trouve un marteau ! » cria un contremaître.

“Ano?” may nagsabi. “Anong sinasabi mo?”

Après avoir vu plusieurs aspects bizarres, le contremaître répéta : « Un marteau ! Un marteau ! »

“Hindi ko maintindihan” may sumagot. “Anong sinasabi mo?”

様々な所で奇妙な会話が始まりました。Nigdo se nerozumely. De snakket alle forskjellige språk. Por fin, tuvieron que abandonar la construcción de la torre. Mahirap magtrabaho ng sama-sama kung hindi natin maiintindihan ang sinasabi ng ibang tao.

En almal het uit mekaar gespat. They found people they could understand and moved on to different parts of the world.

TRANSLATION:

One day, the people were working hard. The leaders were yelling commands at the workers. People talked to each other, and they started noticing something weird. They could no longer understand each other.

“Get a hammer!” a foreman yelled.

“What?” someone said. “What are you talking about?”

After seeing a bunch of weird looks, the foreman repeated, “A hammer! A hammer!”

“I don’t understand!” someone replied. “What are you saying?”

Weird conversations started all over the place. Nobody could understand each other any more! They were all speaking different languages. Finally, they had to give up. It’s hard to work together on something if you can’t understand what people are saying.

So everyone scattered. They found people they could understand and moved on to different parts of the world.

***

The Hebrew word Babel means "gate of God", and it's similar to "balal," which means confusion. 

***

Questions:

How did making people speak different languages stop the construction?

Why did God stop the building?

Can you think of any other reasons that He might do that?

Do you think God’s punishment was merciful?

***

One reason God did it this way was to keep people from getting too powerful. Being united in a cause gives people lots of power. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but when people are united in rebelling against God, that is a bad thing. He made them speak many different languages so that they couldn’t be too united. Only a few hundred years earlier (which to God would be recent), He had sent a flood and wiped out almost everyone because they had become so evil. He didn’t want to have to do something like that again so soon! Even after the Tower of Babel, people got more evil, and God knew that someday He would have to do something about it. He punished the nation of Israel several times. Some of them even went into exile in Babylon. Notice any similarity between “Babylon” and “Babel”? It was probably the same place! Finally, many years later, God did the ultimate act of mercy. Jesus came to earth as a baby. I expect we’ll be hearing more about that later this month.