Victory over Death – Genesis 5

This is the book of the generations of Adam.
When God created man,
he made him in the likeness of God.
Male and female he created them,
and he blessed them
and named them Man when they were created.

It’s almost as if God wants to remind us again that before separating choices were made, God really had provided the best. He created mankind in his likeness, with the ability to have relationship with God. He created them male and female, with the ability to relate to and complete each other. And he even blessed them and named then himself. They had all they needed.

And Adam and Eve did what God called them to do, to multiply and have dominion over the earth. 

This chapter details the lineage from Adam through Seth. Remember that Abel is dead, and because of his choices, Cain is separated from his family and included in a different linage. This lineage seems cut and dry until you come to Enoch.

Of Encoh it is written, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” 

Everyone else died. Everyone except Enoch, who made the choice to “walk with God.”

Don’t you wish you could have seen their relationship, heard their conversations, seen Enoch turn away from bad choices?

And this is the first time we get a glimpse that “walking with God” means victory over death!

The curse for sin on mankind is death. But God, in his grace, is larger than his curse. He sees into the soul of a man. And God has power over death.

Does it remind you of Jesus? Resurrection from the dead. Could this be the first hint of the redemption to come?

But as we head into Chapter 6, we see a very contrasting story… 

Precious – Psalm 116

Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of his saints.

What a mystery! How can death be “precious?”

But somehow it is. I claim this verse at funerals. I can’t say I understand it, but I claim it.

In God’s perspective, the moment of separation for us from our loved one that hurts so much, is the moment of sweet reunion for God.

After all, he created us to be in fellowship with him, walking in the garden, created in his image, being a part of himself and his joyous creation. But that was ruined by sin, and ever since then, has put us in two worlds. 

Jesus unites us by giving us the Holy Spirit, our comforter. But there is still continual sin we contend with daily. We will not be one with God, able to truly walk with him in freedom and light, until we shed this earthly body.

But dying means separation from mankind, from friends and family, from all we have known here on earth. It means letting go of the only community we know, the only love we know, flawed as it might be. It means letting go of our life work, our passions, our possessions, of what remains undone. It means letting go of what we have done right and wrong, with no ability to improve or correct.

Dying, from a human side, is awful. There is no hope. No redemption. Game over.

Dying from a spiritual side is amazing, mystifying… 

All sin is removed as far as the East from the West. No more separation from God, our creator. No more pain or tears or fear. Freedom like Adam had in the Garden of Eden. Such close fellowship with the Godhead, three in one, that we will never long for the idols, the imitations, we made in human life.

That’s from our side, but think of his… since creation, since your creation, God has been longing for you to come home to him. He’s walked with you daily. He’s seen your successes and failures.  In his grace, he’s given you strength to fulfill passions, and in his discipline, he’s given you correction when you needed it. All of it was with the day in mind he knew was coming, planned so carefully, so purposefully, when he would hold you in his arms as one of his sheep, that he was there for you every minute of your life.

And on that day, in the midst of that reunion, he calls it “precious.”

I can’t help but think of a new father holding his baby for the first time. Precious. Unbelievable. Full of awe. So many emotions. What was separated is together, with a future of life together. The pain is over; there is new life. What was created and hidden is now with its maker. It is “right” but more than right, it is “precious.” 

God considers, God feels, the moment of my reunion with him as “precious.”

Mercy – Psalms 116

Years ago I wrote a poem about the “edge” of death, literally, in my cancer journey. Psalm 116 has been a mainstay in my perspective and echos the Psalmist feelings as he peers over the edge and as I continue to cry out to the Lord..

I love the LORD, because he has heard
My voice and pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
Therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

I have a perspective on life I did not have before the cancer journey. Why he would be sparing me and not others, I don’t understand. It is pure mercy.

And because of that mercy, I know each day, each week, each month, each year is a gift for me to give back to him.

The snares of death emcompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
“O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”

 Let me say, this journey has not been a walk in the park. I suffer physical pain, especially with each broken bone and/or surgery. And the emotional side of wondering if each holiday, each visit with family and friends, is difficult. It’s even harder with each sin, wrongdoing, that injures myself or others. So I call on the Lord to free my soul so that I can live rightly in the health and freedom he has given me for today. Because…

Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
Our God is merciful.
When I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

I don’t know why I am here when so many others have gone before me. I can only believe it’s because of his mercy, his vision for my life. It’s certainly not because I deserve more than others, am more talented, am more valuable. I am the “simple” who has been brought low. And my rest, my only rest, is in him.

For you have delivered my soul from death, 
My eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

The chapter goes on, which may be for another day, but I can’t help but camp on the last statement as my mantra. Each time he gives me a new day, each time he delivers me from what is to come, from pain, from fear, I claim from him the strength to…

Walk before the LORD in the land of the living.