Yahweh Saves

 

The following sermon was preached at Immanuel, Marshfield, Wisconsin on the First Sunday in Lent, 1987.  The sermon is based on Genesis 2 & 3 and Matthew 4, but also brings in Romans 5.

Romans 5:12, “Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all men sinned.”

Yahweh Elohim is a creative being.  Yahweh had already made a host of invisible creatures like himself.  They served as messengers to the far flung reaches of space.  With the council of invisible creatures gathered around, Yahweh Elohim decided to fill the emptiness with things visible.  Into the vastness, Yahweh placed billions and billions of groups of fireballs.  Each group was made up of billions and billions of individual lights. They provided some long term fireworks.  One or another would explode every thousand years of so.  Yahweh Elohim regarded time differently than we do.  To Yahweh a thousand years is like a day to us.  Even though the vastness was filled, it still took trillions of light years for light to travel from one place to another.  To fill in the void still more, Mr. Elohim placed several balls of dirt to circle many of the fireballs.  He made smaller dirtballs to orbit the larger balls, which in turn circled the balls of fire.  The balls of fire traveled in orbits themselves.  Into all this, Mr. Elohim put large chunks of orbiting ice which came around only once every 70 or 100 or ten thousand years.

It was all great fun watching the invisible creatures darting between the balls flying around in space.  Then another idea came into Yahweh’s vast mind.  He would put life into the matter which made up the balls of dirt.  The life form would be intelligent, movable, and creative, like himself.  But it would live on the balls of dirt.  So he picked out a medium sized dirtball in the midst of several others spinning around a not-too-large fireball.  It took the light of the fireball about 8 minutes to reach and warm the ball Yahweh now called earth.

Yahweh Elohim knelt beside a spring of water, took a lump of moist dirt and molded a sculpture rectangular in shape with two long appendages extending from the bottom and two shorter ones from on each side near the top.  God wanted the creature he was molding to be movable and able to move other objects.  Recalling that the new addition to creation should also be intelligent and creative he placed a small ball of dirt squarely at the top of the rectangle.  To make the creature even more movable he attached feet from the long appendages with toes at the end.  Longer digits extended from the upper shorter appendages.  He also poked holes into the ball of dirt

Then with loving care Yahweh Elohim knelt over his work of art and blew his own breath into the new creation.  Lids over two holes in the ball fluttered open.  His toes wiggled.  He lifted a side appendage and examined it.  He bent himself at the middle and touched his fingers to the tips of his toes.  Wide eyed with wonder he examined himself like a baby discovered itself for the first time.

Yahweh Elohim called his creature Loved, for he was lovingly made.  Loved became a living being like Yahweh, yet different.

While Loved explored his surrounding, the hills, water, the night lights and the slowly creeping shadows with the hills and the day light created, Yahweh Elohim went off at a distance and once more knelt in the soil.  This time Yahweh began to plant a garden.  He planted tall plants some 100 feet in height with green tops.  Under the canopy of green he placed smaller plants; some bursting with bright colors.  Some plants produced an array of edible objects.  Others produced food underground.  It was like a royal park, fit for a king.

The name of the royal garden park was Delight for everything in it was a delight to the eye or good for food and sometimes both.  Yahweh placed Loved in the garden park named Delight. Loved was.  He thought his creator was a delight himself.  He trusted Yahweh like a small child trusts a loving parent.  Loved enjoyed caring for the park.  He lacked for nothing of what he could want.

Yahweh gave one command:  You are free to eat of anything in the garden with the exception of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The fruit of that tree is deadly poison.  That was no problem for Loved.  He trusted Yahweh to know best.

Beyond being creative Yahweh was also sensitive.  He saw that Loved was lonely.  Out of the dirt He molded all manner of creatures which Loved had great fun naming.  Still, Loved was lonely.  Next, Yahweh put Loved into a deep sleep.  He took a rib, and fashioned a person like Loved, only different.  Loved like Yahweh’s newest creation.  They enjoyed each other’s company Loved named the newest creation, Lovely, for that she was.  Loved and Lovely were filled with trust and openness with one another and with Yahweh.

 Nacash was one of creatures Yahweh had made for Loved to name.  Nacash liked to sneak about and surprise the other creatures when they least expected it.  Nacash was a great tease.  Furthermore, everyone recognized that Nacash was smarter than any other wild creature.           

 One day Nacash said to Lovely: “Is my understanding correct?  Did Elohim really say that you couldn’t eat of any of the trees in the park?”  Lovely replied, “We can eat of any of the trees we want, with one exception.  The tree in the midst of the garden Elohim forbids eating its fruit or touching it, lest we die, whatever it means to die.”  The sneaky one said, “You won’t die. Elohim is deliberately holding something back from you.  Perhaps he knows that if you do eat this fruit you will be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.  He doesn’t want you to have that advantage.”

Nacash crept off to see how the seed he had planted in her mind would grow.  As the idea germinated in Lovely’s head the fruit began to look so appetizing.  The fruit shined liked the most delightful thing she had ever seen in the Delight garden.  She thought, “Maybe the wise thing to do is just see whether Elohim can really be trusted.  What if he really is holding out?  Lovely picked a piece of the fruit and ate.   And when her husband came along trimming the hedges she gave some to him and he also ate.

Indeed, just as Nacash promised, their eyes were opened.  But something was terribly wrong.  Something was out of kilter.  They looked at each other and were filled shame.  Loved and Lovely no longer regarded each other with openness and trust   Now they now they knew mistrust. They held back from each other.  They sensed a need to rip some leaves off a fig tree and cover themselves from each other, but they didn’t know why.  Yahweh Elohim changed their names.  No longer were they Loved and Lovely, now they were known as Self Love and Love of Self.  They had experienced good and evil.  And they could feel themselves returning to dirt, They were dying.

When children were born they had the image of Self Love and Love of Self.  Though some descendants denied it, others recognized the sludge in their veins slowing down all of life until all died.  Many regretted the lack of trust.  They were not happy with thinking of themselves first.  Nevertheless, all were helpless to change their behavior.  They attempted numerous means to clean out the dirt, but in the end all died and returned to the dust from which they came.

Romans 5:19, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Ages passed.  All creatures continued to die.  Yahweh turned many toward himself to look with inner sight at him.  many through his power overcame their mistrust of him and believed that he knew bet.  Those who trusted him had a sense of life within and about them.

In the course of the ages Yahweh Elohim sent one of his messengers to the medium size ball of dirt rotating 8 minutes from it warming and light giving fireball.  Yahweh permitted the messenger to take on an appearance of one of those known as Self Love.  The messenger’s name was Yahweh Shows Strength   He appeared to a young descendant of the long dead Loved and Lovely.  She believed that Yahweh would one day remove their present names of Self Love and Love of Self.  Yahweh Shows strength announced that would give birth to a son.  And surprise of surprises, Yahweh Elohim was going to be the Father.  The name of the boy would be Yahweh Saves

Yahweh Saves was born to the great jubilation of all the invisible of the invisible creatures.  They came zipping in from all over the universe gathering around the place of birth to sing praises to the Father.  For this child was the first since the very beginning of ages to be able to carry clearly and cleanly the named Loved, once again.

Yahweh Saves grew to adulthood.  One day he walked down to on the rivers which watered the earth.  There he was washed by another of Mr. Elohim’s creatures whom he had to himself.  His name was John the Washer man.  John the Washer was one of those who believed and had a strong portion of his ancestor Loved in him.

Upon coming out of the water Yahweh Saves was led by the Spirit was barren and dry   Nothing grew there that would produce fruit to eat.  No rivers ran there.  Nothing was a delight to the eye; except the one named Yahweh Saves.  The place was quite the opposite of Delight Park.  After forty days of living only on his trust that Yahweh Elohim was the best that there is, Tempter appeared on the scene.

Tempter raised a question, “Am I to understand that you are Son of Elohim and that Elohim has brought you out into this barren place and left you with nothing to eat? If you are really the Son of Yahweh Elohim, then why not make some out of these rocks.  What kind of father holds out on his own son?”  Yahweh saves answered: “My ancestors, Loved and Lovely fell for that one.  Don’t you know that true life comes from trusting Yahweh Elohim?”

Tempter led him to a porch around the around the place where Yahweh Elohim was worshipped, “if you are Elohim’s child Elohim couldn’t very well let any harm come to you since you are the chosen hope of Loved and Lovely.  Prove your trust in him.  Jump down and make him prove that he can be trusted.”  Yahweh Saves refused the bait, quoting from the ancient word.     

 Tempter doesn’t give up easily. He took Yahweh Saves to a mountain peak and offered him all the power in the world, if he would only fall down and acknowledge him as Yahweh Who Rules.  Yahweh Saves was getting a bit tired of Tempter posing as one who could and would give anything away, as if he had anything to give.  “Get out of here.  The only one who is to be acknowledged as ruler is Yahweh Elohim and he is the only one to serve.”

For the first time since Loved and Lovely had fallen for the Tempter’s scam one of the new creations had survived the Tempter’s attack.  Yahweh saves had trusted his Father entirely.

In the end Yahweh Elohim’s son lived up to his name.  He saved the creatures on the dirtball only 8 minutes from its fireball.  He removed their names Self Love and Love of Self.  He restored them to be Loved and Lovely once again.  He washed the sludge and death out of their veins restored them to life again.  He sent the Spirit of Yahweh Elohim into each person restored to be Loved and Lovely to keep them in trust in himself.  Yahweh Saves promised that Delight Park or something even better would be given where life would be lived with no dying.  Finally he promised to be with his new creation, Loved and Lovely, to help them overcome the assaults of Tempter for Yahweh Elohim knows that talking through Nacash the snake was only beginning of his sneaky ways.

PS.  After church on that Sunday in 1987 Rose Rchynovsky said as she shook my hand, “That was great.  I don’t think I understood it, but it was great.”