Sermon Text: Genesis 3:8-15
Date: June 9, 2024
Event: Proper 5, Year B
Genesis 3:8-15 (EHV)
They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.”
11God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”
12The man said, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14The Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than all the livestock,
and more than every wild animal.
You shall crawl on your belly,
and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will crush your head,
and you will crush his heel.
Jesus Is Greater than Satan’s Cunning
If you’re in a conflict, you want to come from a position of strength, not weakness. For a court date, you want the facts and evidence to support your side of the case. If you’re the leader of an army fighting a battle, you want to ensure you have numbers or strategy in your favor. In any conflict, you want to ensure you’re on the side that is more likely to win.
On that day long ago in the Garden of Eden, it sure would have seemed like Adam and Eve were on the side more likely to win as a conflict with Satan arose. After all, they had been created by God in his own image. They had perfect harmony with him. Though they had free will, they knew and understood God’s commands and desires for them. How could they lose? They were God’s special creatures, the crown of his newly created, expansive universe. There was no better position to be in!
But then the questions started coming, “Did God really say…?” Eve was too willing to listen to Satan’s questions, and nearby, Adam was too willing to let them talk. The moment Satan started questioning what God had said and later God’s care and concern for them, Adam and Eve should have cut it off right there. But, Satan found a crack in the armor and turned up the pressure. He accused God of lying to them, of holding out on them, and that what God forbade was actually good for them. They should eat the fruit from the tree God told them not to eat. Only good things would come of it!
Except Satan is the father of lies. And this first lie recorded in Scripture was a doozy because it roped Adam and Eve into its trap. Before long, they ate some of the fruit, which was off-limits to them. And in that moment, as sin entered the world through our first parents, everything changed.
The change was instantaneous; Satan’s mission was wildly successful. Previously, Adam and Eve had enjoyed being together as they were created. After they sinned, the first thing they noticed was that they were naked and felt shame, so they hastily used leaves to make impromptu garments.
But the real tragedy came in the first verse of our First Reading for this morning. They heard the voice of the Lord God, who was walking around in the garden during the cooler part of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. They had been created in God’s image to have perfect harmony and fellowship with God. Sin destroyed that. So now, instead of joy at God making his presence known, they hide from him. Sin replaced the harmonious fellowship Adam and Eve had with God and replaced it with fear. And rightly so. They had disobeyed God’s clear, simple command and would now face the consequences for what happened.
But see God’s patience and his love. He seeks out Adam and Eve. “Where are you?” It’s not that God didn’t know, but he was giving our first parents the chance to repent, to come to him and express their sorrow over what they had done. But instead of repentance, there was blame. Adam blamed Eve and then even had the audacity to blame God for the sin; Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent, Satan.
God is not fooled by their blame game. It’s not as if the pointing fingers make him forget that he needs to deal with this sin in his people. He will get there. But he does draw his attention first to Satan with words that will have a tremendous impact on Adam and Eve and you and me.
The Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the livestock, and more than every wild animal. You shall crawl on your belly, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. I’m not sure what snakes looked like in God’s original creation, but here is where they get their form that we are familiar with. A whole order of animals faced the effects of Satan choosing their form to bring sin into God’s perfect creation.
But verse 15 is the real focus for this morning. It speaks not only to Satan but to all people as well, and if you permit me, we’ll spend a few moments with this amazing verse: I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.
Speaking directly to Satan, God promises hostility (or you might have the word “enmity” floating in your mind from other English translations) between Satan and Eve. But this hostility goes beyond just Satan and Eve, it will be between Satan’s seed and Eve’s seed. Satan’s and Eve’s descendants would be at each other’s throats. But who are their descendants? Angels, including fallen angels like Satan, do not reproduce.
The seed of Satan are all those who follow his path, who take his bait. In those first few moments between their sin and God’s intervention, Adam and Eve were both the seed of Satan. They were those who followed Satan and faced the same condemnation that he faced: hell. They were spiritually dead. To use more familiar language, they were unbelievers.
The seed of Eve would be believers, those clinging to God’s promises in faith. But there is no promise to cling to in this unique moment in the Garden of Eden. So God wastes no time in making the promise: He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. The promise of seed shifts from plural to singular, from all seed to one particular seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. God is speaking about one singular descendant from Eve. This is the first promise of a Savior.
There are two promises here. First, someone is coming to crush Satan’s head. Secondly, Satan will crush this person’s heel. If you’ve ever had a heel injury, you know it is wildly unpleasant. It hurts to walk; every step is a reminder of that injury, and there’s really no way to avoid the pain and reality of what has happened.
As painful and annoying as a heel injury is, though, we’d all much prefer a crushed heel over a crushed head. A crushed head isn’t painful and annoying; it’s the end of your life. A crushed head is complete defeat. If, in a battle, one person has their heel crushed and another has their head crushed, the one who suffered the crushed heel, while injured, is the victor.
This first promise of the Savior takes us right to Golgatha, to the cross. We don’t have the vivid details that would come in later promises through the prophets, but the outcome is certain, even in this foggy, somewhat vague first promise. The promised Savior is the victor. He will crush Satan’s head while suffering a real but not defeating injury.
Jesus foreshadowed what was coming throughout his ministry. Time and time again, he rebukes evil spirits, the fallen angels, the cohorts of Satan. When he speaks, they must obey. They scream in terror at facing the Son of God because they know his authority over them.
But the real crushing battle took place at the cross. Jesus’ “heel” is severely wounded as he suffers unimaginable physical torture before the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate, and the crucifixion. And that’s to say nothing of the even worse spiritual torment he endured, as all the world’s sins were placed on him, and he suffered the hell that Adam and Eve’s first sin and our many sins since deserve. God abandoned him. “Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45).
That dark Good Friday looked like the roles were reversed. As Jesus hung lifelessly on the cross and then his body was placed in the tomb, it looked like Jesus had been doing the heel-crushing and Satan had accomplished the head-crushing.
But as the women went to the tomb that Sunday morning, the reality was made clear. The angel’s question implies it, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The vacant tomb points at it. But Jesus’ appearances thereafter proved it. Jesus walked away from that horrible battle the victor. To use Jesus’ words from our Gospel, Jesus has walked into Satan’s home, tied him up, and then plundered him. Satan lost that battle with Jesus completely. Jesus crushed his head. There were no cunning, crafty questions to bring, no sweet-sounding lies to put forward. Satan lost; Jesus won—end of story.
What does that mean for us? The same thing it meant for Adam and Eve. We have sinned, yes; we deserve God’s punishment, yes; we will face difficulties, trials, and chastisements in this life because of our sins. But Jesus won the victory for us. He ensured that our sins were forgiven because he took them upon himself.
Satan’s whole goal in the Garden of Eden was to ruin what God made. His jealousy over mankind’s relationship with God and God’s power led him to the tree that day. But in the end, God was the victor.
There will come a day when we will no longer be in this world of sin and decay, when our sinful nature will no longer pull us to disobey God. No, there we will have the full restoration of the image of God within us; there, we will have perfect harmony and fellowship with God forever. It will be ours because Jesus gives it to us as a free gift.
We are in the midst of a very real battle in this life, but Jesus is greater than all the cunning tricks of Satan. My dear brothers and sisters, you do not need to be afraid. Jesus has rescued you. You are safe with him. He has crushed Satan’s head so that you can spend eternity with him. Thanks be to God! Amen.
