Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text for today’s meditation is Genesis 3:8-15

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" ¹⁰ And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." ¹¹ He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" ¹² The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." ¹³ Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 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." (Gen　3:8　ESV)

Let’s take a trip back to our childhood. If you were anything like me you got into plenty of trouble. My mom told me later in life that if I was quiet in my room for more than fifteen minutes she came to check on me. More than likely she found me in the middle of my floor with something taken apart. I loved to figure out how things worked. The problem is most of the time I couldn’t get it back together the same way. In my case I was caught red handed. There was no way I could blame anyone else for what I was doing. I do remember other times when I tried real hard to blame whatever I was doing on anyone but me. So, how many of you remember blaming a sister, a brother, a dog, or a neighbor kid for something you did? If you were like me most of the time it didn’t work. The problem is that didn’t stop us from doing it again and again. It is really hard to stand up to our mistakes and problems. What we didn’t realize is that the problem would have been much less painful had we fessed up the first time. But no, we didn’t learn that lesson we try real hard to find someone else to blame for our problems. This isn’t just for children either. Think of how many criminals blame their parents for their crimes or how many abusers blame the alcohol or drugs or even their parents again. We even have people blaming the government for their crimes. This isn’t a new problem either.

Adam and Eve seem to have this problem as well. Eve is tempted and deceived by Satan and she falls to the temptation. She then tempts Adam. Now at this point Adam being the spiritual head of the household should have told Eve she was wrong and not partaken of the fruit. But no, Adam is weak and falls to the temptation as well. They had done wrong and they knew it. When God asked them if they ate from the tree He commanded them not to eat, they came clean and took responsibility for their actions didn’t they? No, of course not they play the blame game, it has to be someone else’s fault, and it can’t be their own. They can’t really be responsible for their own actions can they? Besides it was only an apple, how can a piece of fruit really be bad for them, because God told them not to eat it. He commanded it and therefore it was a sin and that sin contaminated all of creation. Let’s call sin what it really is, poison! It is poison! It ruins everything it touches. We have lost sight of how damaging sin is. Even the littlest sin drives a wedge between you and God. From the seemingly less significant sins, the white lies or the gossip, to the sins that impact more people like stealing or murder. They are all sins, poison, they damage our relationship with God and the rest of His creation.

God hates sin! He created a perfect world and we ruined His creation, just imagine how much He hates the sin that ruined His perfect creation. His creation is poisoned. So, what are we to do?

First of all, we need to recognize sin for what it is, poison. We also must recognize the poison in our lives. Do we have some poison apples in our lives that really are a sin yet we have explained it away as just an apple, after all it’s only fruit? We must recognize the sins, the poison in our life. We have to be brutally honest with ourselves. We have to stop playing the blame game. We have to recognize that we are sinners and we are poisoned. How do we do that? We let the Word of God convict our heart of the things we are doing and have done wrong, the poison in our life. Remember, the Word has two functions, the Law which convicts us and it is only when we have been convicted and repent that we can turn to the Word for the second function. If we are poisoned while at home, what do we do? We call poison control, right? We even teach this to our children in school. So, once we have identified the poison in our life and realize you are poisoned, what do we do? We call poison control! God is poison control.

Right away while talking to Adam and Eve, God recognized the poison and the need for poison control. Let’s look at verse 15; "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring;" (Gen　3:15　ESV) God stepped in and made Satan the enemy of all mankind. But God knew that would not be enough. He knew He would have to make His creation right again. He continues in verse 15, "he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." He, the offspring of the woman shall bruise Satan’s head and Satan shall bruise his heal. Notice the offspring of the woman is not plural; it says "He shall." So who is God talking about? He is talking about Jesus. Jesus is poison control. Jesus has His heal bruised at Calvary when He went to the cross. He willingly took all the poison in the world, all the poison that existed and would exist and He ingested it. Jesus made it His, He suffered the pain of all that poison. Jesus died because of that poison for you and for me. Satan bruised His heal on that cross but as Jon said last week, there is the rest of the story. Jesus went to Hades to see Satan and He not only bruised Satan’s head, there is a better translation, He crushed Satan’s head. When Jesus was raised from the dead, Jesus crushed Satan’s head and He crushed death and sin. Jesus conquered poison. He consumed it and neutralized it for you and me.

Because of Adam and Eve, we are born poisoned. We must call poison control as soon as possible when we are blessed with the birth of a child. Jesus has assured you forgiveness of sins, washing away the poison, in your baptism. Through your baptism you were washed clean of all the poison in you. You are clean. But that freedom from poison doesn’t last long does it. You are constantly bombarded by temptation. The poison Satan is tempting you with looks like it is something good for you and you take it. Just like a harmless piece of fruit, you willingly take the poison from Satan. Now your poisoning is on you. You have to fess up to poisoning yourself and come before God and repent. You must take responsibility for your sin and repent. Remember repent means to turn away from sin not just say you’re sorry and go back to it again. You must turn away. Once you have repented you call out to poison control once again in confession and absolution and in Holy Communion. Once again, Jesus washes away the poison. This is the second part of the Word of God. The Gospel! The Gospel is that He has washed you clean, you are no longer poisoned! He washed you clean and what is it He says to you? Just what He said to the adulterous woman in John chapter 8 verse 11; Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." (John　8:11　ESV) Poison yourself no more!

Amen.