The story in the first pages of the book of Genesis has always intrigued me a fair deal.

 

This beautiful story of creation, love, fatherhood, adoption, community, beauty, and relationship is drastically contrasted by a story of hurt, separation, betrayal, and death. And everything that takes place "after" this story happens in hopes of returning things to this prototype, this blueprint.

 

In the garden which is in the East, God creates us out of the plenitude of His love and mercy.

 

In the garden which is in the East, God makes man in His image and likeness and they meet freely and are in relationship. They are in communion.

 

In the garden which is in the East, humanity is given one another to love, honor, and serve.

 

In the garden which is in the East, humanity is bestowed and entrusted with the authority of caring for the whole earth and all the creation.

 

In the garden which is in the East, humanity is blessed by God to create with Him, multiplying and filling all the earth.

 

And then, "death entered into the world through the envy of the devil..." and with that, we left the garden which is in the East. 

 

Having left the garden, we left behind the love and obedience to the Creator who gave us life.

 

We left behind the tree of life which was sustaining us and giving us mortal creatures immortality.

 

We left behind the freedom from shame and the innocence which was bestowed on us.

 

We left behind love, honor, and service for one another, trading in "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh" with "the woman you gave me..."

 

We left behind a reality without sickness or pain.

 

We left behind life and took on death.

 

But hope was not lost. In fact, Hope was ferociously triumphant in restoring to us all that we had lost when we left the garden in the East.

 

"What then was God to do? Or what should be done, except to renew again the"in the image," so that through it human beings would be able once again to know him? But how could this have occurred except by the coming of the very image of God, our Savior Jesus Christ? For neither by human beings was it possible, since they were created "in the image": but neither by angels, for they were not even images. So the Word of God came himself, in order that he being the image of the Father (cf. Col 1.15), the human being "in the image" might be recreated. It could not, again, have been done in any other way, without death and corruption being utterly destroyed. So he rightly took a mortal body, that in it death might henceforth be destroyed utterly and human beings be renewed again according to the image. For this purpose, then, there was need of none other than the Image of the Father." (On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius. Chapter 13)

 

"For by the sacrifice of his own body, he both put an end to the law lying against us and renewed for us the source of life-giving hope of the resurrection. For since through human beings death had seized human beings, for this reason, again, through the incarnation of the God Word there occurred the dissolution of death and the resurrection of life, as the Christ-bearing man says, "For as by a human being came death, by a human being has come also the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive and that which follows (1 Cor 15: 21-22)." (On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius. Chapter 10)

 

"And now the very corruption of death no longer holds ground against human beings because of the indwelling Word, in them through the one body. As when a great king has entered some large city and made his dwelling in one of the houses in it, such a city is certainly made worthy of high honor and no longer does any enemy or bandit descend upon it, but it is rather reckoned worthy of all care because of the king's having taken residence in one of its houses; so also does it happen with the King of all. Coming himself into our realm, and dwelling in a body like the others, every design of the enemy against human beings has henceforth ceased, and the corruption of death, which had prevailed formerly against them, perished. For the race of human beings would have been utterly dissolved had not the Master and Savior of all, the Son of God, come for the completion of death." (On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius. Chapter 9)

 

Christ's life, death, and resurrection have again restored to us all that we were given by grace in the garden and even more! And yet, the work is not quite finished. Death has been destroyed, and yet I partake in death every day. I have been given access to Life again, and most days, my mind is only filled with worry about bills, social obligations, and what I should watch next on YouTube. There is a disconnect between the work Christ has done to restore me, and my work to be restored.

 

My task, and your task then, is to strive daily towards the "garden life." A life that is in communion with God, every person, and all of creation. A life that yearns to redirect itself away from the fallen and towards the eternal. A life that sees the beauty of God in all things it encounters. A life firmly rooted, again, in the household of God.

 

This blog, hopefully, will be an encouragement to me and to you.

 

The road has been paved and the gates are open, and I'm on my way, journeying Eastward.