Title: The Symphony of Christmas: The Sound of Grace
Date: November 29th, 2020
Text: Genesis 3:1-6, 14-15
Bottom Line: The Sound of Grace Drowns Out The Sound of Sin
Introduction:
As most of you know I love music, I love to play music, I love to listen to music and to say that I have an eclectic musical taste would be an understatement. Music is wonderful because it is a kind of universal language. While genre’s may separate us, we may not like all of the same forms as humans you will be hard pressed to find a person, a people, a culture in the world that doesn’t love some form of music.
Kids the reason I love music is because in many ways it tells a story, it tells you how to feel. For example adults when we hear this sound (Jaw’s Theme) what do we know? There’s a shark in the water. Music tells us how to feel.
French Poet Victor Hugo once wrote, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
On the walls we have some of the classic Christmas Carols that we sing about this time each year, there are often too many to sing during our worship gatherings and they tell the story of Christmas, they point us to something that in the story of Advent we can’t miss.
But the scriptures do the same thing for us. The story of Advent is much like one of the most expressive forms of music, the symphony. The word symphony means an agreement of sound different sounds working together to tell a story in distinct movements that tell us how to feel told by a master composer.
The story of Christmas is just that, an agreement of sounds, expressions, movements composed by the creator of the universe to usher in the first advent of his Son into the world and it is through this incarnation story, God becoming flesh and dwelling among us, that we will get to experience The Symphony of Christmas.
Turn with me in your Bible’s to Genesis 3 starting at verse 14. This is the first movement of the symphony of Christmas and as with all symphonies it begins with the sonata. The first movement creates a crisis, the sound is often low in troubling chords kinds of like this…
The Midnight Sonata is an example of a first movement of a symphony that creates crisis and it mirrors the symphony of Christmas in that the story of Advent begins with a crisis. But out of this crisis there is a sound, a sound that tells us how to feel that points us toward hope, it’s the sound of grace.
Genesis 3:14-15 (ESV) 14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
This may seem to be a strange reading for Advent season, but without it, with out the crisis of what is represented in this passage there is no need for the incarnation, for the Son of God to come in flesh into the world.
I want to talk to our children for a second, kids have you ever heard a story with a dragon in it or seen a movie with a dragon? What do dragons look like? They are big, they are scary, a story from my childhood comes from this story on the screen one of my favorite movies growing up Sleeping Beauty.
It’s a story that ends with a dragon being slain by a hero. Well in this passage a dragon of sorts is introduced into the Bible story. I want you to hang onto that image, lock it into your minds because it’s going to be important for remembering the lesson we are going to learn this morning.
What has brought us to this passage? The crisis of sin. God placed man in the garden to to tend the garden, he provides all that man needs for life, he provides a helpmate for man in his wife Eve, the mother of all living, he has provided all things for him and we read the crisis that leads us to this passage:
Genesis 3:1-6 (ESV) 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 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.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
This friends is the low tone sound of the first movement of Advent, the crisis is created.
Move 1: The Sound of Sin Brings Disharmony to Creation
Prior to this experience in Genesis 3, all the notes sounded the same, the song of creation was sung in harmony and in unison and the serpent does something here, he introduces a foreign note, “did God really say?”
And here is the disharmony that was introduced, what had the creation been up to this point? It had been good. If you recall after each day of creation God said it was good, there was morning and there was evening and on the last day this creation of his, humankind, it was proclaimed that it was very good.
Consider for a moment what is being offered here and the note that is being played by the serpent. He says to them here is what you will gain by this, you will know good and evil. So what do they really gain? They only gain knowing evil. they already knew what was good, that was all they had experienced, so when he says they would know good and evil what he is really saying, what they miss entirely is that the only thing they will gain is to also know evil and when they decide that is the song they want to sing, it is like the Midnight Sonata, it is a low tone, it is a movement of crisis in the symphony.
Friends whenever we sin, whenever we are tempted to do what is contrary to God’s greatest good for us, which by definition is sin according to this passage, choosing something other than God’s good for us, we are making a trade off that creates disharmony, it makes the notes of the song of our lives not work together, it creates crisis, it creates disharmony.
But for the composer of the universe, The God of Glory, the notes must be in order, in the crisis that is created there must be a sound of agreement, the only reasonable response from the creator.
Move 2: The Sound of Sin Demands the Sound of Justice
As the story continues we see the introduction of God’s justice to humanity a concept that was completely foreign to everyone involved. In Genesis 3:14-19 The serpent is cursed, he will be the lowest of all creatures, the woman will have pain in childbearing, the man will suffer in his work and ultimately, the sound of justice is sung in
Genesis 3:19 (ESV) 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Death enters the world. This is justice for sin, a right and reasonable fair payment for denying the creator of the universe, denying his goodness, denying his provision, trading the glory of God for experiencing something he never intended for us to experience.
Later down the road, Paul affirms this truth in Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death”.
God has no alternative here. The moment that the foreign sound of sin is introduced, the song, the symphony must be made right, the sound must be brought back together and the only way that happens is through God’s justice and it is this sound, as God makes things right, as he brings the sound into agreement that crisis is created.
Man and beast intended to live in harmony now live in discord, humankind intended to experience God in his presence in perfect union with Him and with each other is replaced with division, so much so that instantaneously there is division among man. Childbearing, the very act of emulating the creator by being a creator, bringing life into the world which up to this point had only been done by God himself now comes with pain and hardship, work which was once done with joy and perhaps even ease is now done with pain and is futile will always be incomplete.
The sound of justice, God making his symphony aright does not come without consequence. The consequences of sin are real and you know they are because you have felt them. It’s more than the wage we receive in physical death. It is a death of relationships, it is a death of connection to God that is very real.
Friends if we are real with ourselves we experience this daily. We see sin creep into our lives, we see sinful attitudes, sinful habits, we seek things God did not intend for us to ever experience and we feel the consequences we feel the justice of God and what I am going to tell you friends is that is not a bad thing.
This was not a bad thing for Adam and Eve, the feeling was bad, the experience was bad, but the consequence was not bad it was good, it was good because God is good and the only thing that can be done in that circumstance, the goodness of God is revealed in justice because the pain of justice should put us in the place to never desire the things that God never intended for us to experience, the sin that so easily entangles us.
But if this were the only sound we heard, if this where the only song in this movement of the symphony of Christmas we would indeed have no desire, no need, no hope to want to continue on through to the next sound in this first movement of the symphony. But that is not where this movement ends, the sound of justice gives birth to another sound, a sweet sound that gives us hope in the future.
Move 3: The Sound of Justice Brings The Sound of Grace
Look again at:
Genesis3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Something extraordinary is happening here that shows the abundant grace of God, in the midst of this sound of justice, a deserving consequence, a deserving penalty for sin, a sound of grace rings forth. God is doing two things in this verse, listen closely, listen for the sound of grace here. God put’s enmity, let me explain that word, it is conflict, it is hostility it is struggle. Well how is that filled with grace, how can conflict and hostility ever be filled with grace? Look at where the conflict lies:
First the conflict lies between the serpent and the woman. Here is what this means and why it is filled with grace. The opposite of enmity would be peace, shalom, unity and the moment that sin enters the world there is a unity with sin, humankind is now aligned with evil. What God does in this passage is he does something that we could not do ourselves is he creates a hostility between man and the source of sin in a way that we know it is not right, it is not okay that in the deepest part of who we are we know sin is wrong.
Paul put it this way in Romans 2:14-16 (ESV) 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
The law of God is written on all men’s hearts, whether they respond to that hostility with sin is another thing all together, but the hostility is there and friends that is an act of grace on God’s part, he puts a hostility, a conflict between us and sin in a way that makes humanity know something is wrong.
But there is another conflict here that rings with the sweet sound of grace, it is a hostility, a conflict between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman. This offspring of the woman has historically been interpreted as the first foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus Christ in flesh. This rings with the sound of grace because God doesn’t leave us to the full consequence of death he provides a way of restoration for us and it will come through this offspring. The first mention of Christmas is in this passage, the offspring is a child, a child who will be born in a manger in Bethlehem.
This is why in the Symphony of Christmas, this is the first movement; God immediately responds to the problem of sin by preparing for the future the coming of his son in the first Advent. This first movement, The Sound of Grace sets the tone for the two part finale to come: The Sound of Glory on Christmas Eve and The Sound of Victory on the First Sunday after of Christmas.
Bottom Line: The Sound of Grace Drowns Out The Sound of Sin
Kids do you remember when I started talking with you this morning about dragons and I told you there are dragons in the Bible, dragons in this story. Well in any good story with dragons and heroes, what does the hero do to the dragon? He slays the dragon right?
Well it’s no difference here, the child that comes at Christmas, the child that is talked about in this passage does slay the dragon. There is a passage at the end of your Bible in the book of Revelation and it says this Revelation 20:9-10 (ESV) 9 And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
The bruising of the head of the serpent, the blow to the head that destroys him, this is where it happens. The bruising of the heel of the Christmas child, that happens on the cross. But you see a blow to the head and a blow to the heel are very different. The blow to the heel, the cross, that pain is not lasting but we will talk about that when Pastor Verlyn brings the second part of our Finale to God’s Symphony of Christmas on December 27th, The Sound of Victory.
But parents you know where this is headed and you don’t have to wait to tell your children the victorious story of the cross, share with them today lead them into a relationship with Jesus Christ, and if you are an adult in with us today the sound of grace that you hear in this passage, that’s for you that is a grace that you need not wait for. If you have seen the effects of the disharmony of sin in you life you don’t need to stay there you can can respond today and that is how we are going to respond.
I am going to have Carla come and play during a time of prayer and we will spend a few moments together praying for the removal of sin and living in the grace that God gives. There is no reason to delay today is the day to hear the sound of grace in the Symphony of Christmas and respond. Wherever you are, at home with your families, here with your families or with a friend near to you today is the day to undo the disharmony of sin and align our hearts with the sound of grace. Parents pray with your children, lead them pray that today God would reveal himself in their hearts and ask them to respond to the prompting of the Spirit. And if you are here today and you are realizing today that God is calling you into a relationship with him and you are responding to the prompting of the Spirit please tell me that you are ready to follow Jesus.
Closing: The Sound of Grace Drowns Out The Sound of Sin
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