Out Our Way:

Out our way, you run across a great many trails and sometimes you can get a tad mixed up about which one to follow. But if you have an idea about direction, you are rarely led astray by a false trail. If I am heading west, then a trail that changes direction to north or south is not likely to be the trail I want. It will take me somewhere, to be sure - but not where I intend to go.

In Genesis is the incident with the original "fork tongue" deceiver - the serpent who seeks to destroy humanity by sending Adam and Eve on the wrong trail. Although the Genesis account never specifically identifies this being as anything other than "The serpent," few people today have any doubts as to the true identity of the original "snake in the grass." Clearly this being was more than a mere snake, for while I don't care for rattlers, I can't say as how I ever found any of them malicious or downright evil. But this critter is both, an that is why most folks identify him with Satan - the devil and enemy of humanity.

As you may recall, there are two very special trees in the midst of the garden. One is open and free to all, and the other is forbidden. The first tree is wholsesome and life-giving, for "the Tree of Life" tells us that immortality was always the plan for creation. But the second tree is poison, and though it's fruit looks good, it is the tree of death.

Key to undersanding this is the term "knowledge of Good and Evil." This is a semetic phrase for "knowing everything" - that is, for "playing God." Knowledge is not evil nor is it forbidden, as some have mistakenly thought the text was saying, but the desire to replace God with self is. To think you know everything is, as the Enemy said, "to think you are the equal to God."

Now, being in an agricultural area, we understand some things that may not be as obvious to our urban neighbors. Most of us take it for granted that if you pluck a rose from the bush, even placing it in water will not prolong its life very long. The flower depends on the branch, the leaves, and the roots of the living bush for survival. Cut off from the source of its life, it will wither and die. Humanity is no different. God created man and woman and earth to be in unity with Him, but disrupt that connection, and what follows is decay, rot and death.

The serpent's temptation to eat of the forbidden fruit was designed to cut humanity and creation off from God - to pluck creation from the life source and so doom it. Many ancient theologians used to argue that "nature is no longer natural" because it has been disrupted and corrupted by the poison of human pride. That the poison has done the job is obvious and as we read world history and watch the rise and fall of one civilization after another we can clearly see the poison is still working.

But we also begin to notice that somewhere along the way - a little more than 2,000 years ago - humanity began a slow climb back out of the swamp and along a new path. The serpent has always been there whispering and re-infecting the poison into the veins of the unwary - trying the stop this new movement - but the world has and is changing radically. There is a sense of a return to Eden being a real hope. The Covenant Trail shows us where humanity took the wrong path and how God set about to turn us around and get back on the right one. But how can we truly realize the incredible good news of finally having found the right trail if we have never understood we had been on the wrong one? And how can we hope for something better I we never dared to dream it could exist?

The trail that leads back to God is a long and hard trail, but once we know we are on it, we find the encouragement and hope to keep going - and before long we, too, see signs along the trail that we are indeed heading for home at last.

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John Bruington and Goliath serve the community of the Lord's People with many others here in Havre and on the Hi-Line and we all invite you to come and join us in the adventure.