And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So…she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened…
Genesis 3:2-7 (ESV)
I know what you’re thinking. “That can’t be the right verse. Where’s Mary? Where’s Joseph? Where are the shepherds and the angels and the manger?” I realize this is a strange way to start an Advent devotional, but the road to Christmas starts here, at the very beginning, when everything goes wrong. The story of Jesus’s birth can become so familiar to us that we forget why it happened at all—because of a lie.
Sometimes when my wife and I make Christmas lists with our boys, they get anxious. They decide that they need some of these things NOW. Not because they’re spoiled, but because they are suddenly worried they won’t receive good gifts. I see the little gears turning in their heads: “Christmas is so far away. What if something goes wrong? What if I don’t get this?”
It’s easy to dismiss this as childish selfishness, but that’s not really it. What happens is my boys sometimes worry that their parents won’t come through. They worry that maybe we aren’t able—or aren’t willing—to give them good gifts.
In the Genesis passage above, we tend to focus on the lie the serpent speaks aloud: “You will not surely die.” But the unspoken lie was the one that our first parents fell for. Do you see it? The serpent subtly suggests that God has forbidden the tree because he does not want Adam and Eve to become like him.
At first, Eve’s conversation with the serpent shows a childlike trust in God. And just like the moment a child discovers that their earthly parents aren’t perfect, Eve wonders whether her heavenly Father is. As the serpent speaks, doubt takes root in Eve’s heart. She wonders… what if that is true? What if God is holding something back from them? What if he doesn’t love them the way she thought he did?
And that was all it took.
This moment is such a tragedy, for we were always meant to “be like God.” How could we not? We are made in his image. But as happens so often, we reject God’s timing and God’s plan because we are convinced we know better. We are convinced that God’s intentions for us are NOT wholly good. The original lie is the same one we tell ourselves today.
As we begin to celebrate Advent, let us look back beyond the manger. Our anticipation of God’s great salvation properly begins not in Bethlehem, but in Eden. At the beginning of time, we believed a lie about God and became separated from him. But then, thousands of years later, in the fullness of time, a little baby came to remake the world. Christmas is the answer to the serpent’s lie—God has not withheld anything from us. He will even give us himself.
