Jesus reverses the curse on the tree! By His bloody sweat, suffering, death, and burial, He peeled away sins punishment.
The Bible is full of different types of literature: Historical Narrative, Legal Code, Gospels, Prophetic Literature, Apocalyptic Literature, and Poetry. These and other types of biblical literature are the different ways God uses His Word to bring you the message of both His Law and Gospel. Since we are all too familiar with this passage as preachers, I want to suggest we look at one function of Hebrew Poetry which might lead us to a meaningful reflection on this text and explore the meaning of the Gospel of Christ for you.
In Hebrew Poetry there is a rhetorical device called Parallelism. “Parallelism is the most prominent rhetorical figure in ancient Near Eastern poetry, and is also present, although less prominent, in biblical prose. It can be defined as the repetition of the same or related semantic content and/or grammatical structure in consecutive lines or verses.”[1] Hebrew Parallelism is a unique way of thinking biblically. It is the practice of framing our thoughts in such a way that after you say something you then find a way to say it a second time in order to provide clarity, definition, meaning, or contrast. It feels like repetition, but it is really so much more. I observe that this rhetorical device in biblical literature has also shaped the larger framework of how the Bible tells its story beyond the limits poetry.
For instance, have you noticed the repetition of the accounts of Kings and Chronicles? Have you noticed the repetition of the Ten Commandments and the journey in the wilderness repeated in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy? Even the creation story itself is recorded twice in the same book; first in Genesis 1 and then again in Genesis 2! All of this is in order to provide clarity, definition, meaning, and contrast in the retelling. But this rhetorical device used by the Holy Spirit stretches even between testaments. Think about the image of the tree in our Old Testament reading for the First Sunday in Lent. In Genesis 3, we see at the beginning of biblical history that all our problems started at a tree. Is it any wonder that in God’s infinite beauty He would poetically solve all our problems on another tree as well? The tree of Calvary is where Christ would pay for original sin and all of the sins of the whole human race. The resurrected Christ has set a frame for our thinking about the story of salvation. It is a frame not just for Lent, but for our whole understanding of the Bible. In a masterful poetic turn, God has set a parallelism between two trees which provides clarity to how He would save us. This parallelism defines the purpose of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. It gives us a contrast between human sin and God’s free and full salvation in Christ. Finally, this imagistic parallelism gives us the meaning of the Gospel.
The tree of Calvary is where Christ would pay for original sin and all of the sins of the whole human race.
Because this is the case, we can use an Imagistic Structure called Frame-Refrain:
“This sermon structure uses a single image (in this case, a tree) in the opening and the closing of the sermon for the hearers. In the opening use of the image, the preacher describes the image and then offers a thematic statement he associates with the image. The central body of the sermon then becomes a preaching of that thematic statement. The thematic statement becomes a refrain which holds the sermon together. The preacher uses the thematic statement to interpret the text and to apply that text to the lives of the hearers. It often helps if the refrain is gospel-centered so it enables the preacher to proclaim the Gospel as it is heard in the text, the theological teaching, and the lives of the hearers today. The sermon concludes by returning to the image (creating a frame around the body of the sermon) and offering the hearers a final climactic statement of the refrain.”[2]
To put this structure into practice for our text, we will start the sermon by talking about the obvious problem of human sin which began at the tree in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps, instead of painting the scene politely like most renaissance artists do, we can paint it a little more vividly. We always imagine just a pluck of a perfect fruit with one dainty, little bite out of it. I would press into the nature of our sin by turning Eve and Adam into a pestilence on the tree, sating their murderous, idolatrous lust for more by devouring the tree. There are no polite taste-test’s here. Instead, we find bloated, distended, wasteful humanity aching from their bloated bellies with a pile of fruit corpses around them like some wild beast. Murder and sin are on the tree. We realize a complete loss of innocence and dignity. They have gone from God’s created people, to breaking all ten of the Ten Commandments at the tree. The ruination at that tree would lead to a clear refrain which moves us from the Law of the sermon towards the Gospel. You can craft your own refrain, but for the sake of our work together I will suggest: In order to find hope, you would have to run a marathon through your Bible to find where God reverses the curse on another tree! You would break a sweat and have to peel through the pages of scripture to find the place where God reverses the curse on a different tree for you and for me. In this sermon, I will restate the refrain, adjusting it only slightly after this law proclamation in service of articulating the Gospel in the fashion of Hebrew Parallelism.
With this kind of frame set around the image of the tree and with the stated refrain, you can now further develop the refrain in the second move of the sermon structure with an illustration that takes your listeners deeper into the image and further into what the Gospel means, which leads back to the refrain restated in a Parallelism kind of way.
As an illustration, I have a friend named Dan who loves to run. In fact, he is one of the few true Iron Man athletes I personally know. There is an annual race in Spokane Washington called the Bloomsday Festival Race. Marathon enthusiasts, fun runners, New Year’s Day resolutioners, and so many more participate in this race which has a unique twist. As the race begins in the chilly morning air, everyone shows up a bit overdressed. But as they run and as the day heats up, they actually shed their layers and throw them onto the trees, thousands of clothes of all different colors, shapes, and sizes. The garments are literally hanging on the trees like lifeless bodies. It is not just some dainty little vest or two, but a pestilent swarm of fabric weighing down the trees, marking the whole long stretch from where the race began to where it finished. Here is a link to a great local Spokane news article on the race.
As we hang our heads in shame for sin, God turns our eyes to Jesus in the Gospel.
Does this not remind you of Hebrews 12:1-2, where it says: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” In order to find hope for the forgiveness of the sin that cling so closely to you in this life, you have to run straight through your Bible to find where God reverses the curse on another tree! No, it is not some tree in Spokane Washington. You have to peel through the pages of scripture to find the place where God reverses the curse on the tree of Calvary for you and for me. Look to Jesus there on the tree of the Cross (return to Frame). He ran the marathon for your sin, in your place. On the cross, He took the sins which clung to us and weighed us down and clothed Himself in them (possible use or reference to the Walt Wangerin Jr work entitled Ragman). As we hang our heads in shame for sin, God turns our eyes to Jesus in the Gospel. Now it is clear, all of our sins are hung on Jesus on the tree of Calvary. He bore the weight of our sin and was thrown away like the trash on Bloomsday into a borrowed grave. But the race did not finish there. No, the finish line was on the other side of the grave. Jesus rose from the dead and crossed that finish line because the problem we received at the tree in Genesis was only solved by what Jesus did to finish sins punishment for us on Calvary. He finished the course and now we live a new life, free and full because of Him.
In Lent, we find hope in Jesus who for the joy set before Him endured the tree of Calvary for the sins of the tree of Eden, and despising the shame, the Father resurrected Him and He is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus reverses the curse on the tree! By His bloody sweat, suffering, death, and burial, He peeled away sins punishment. You can only find this Gospel in the pages of scripture. There you discover the place where God reverses the curse at the tree of Calvary for you and for me.
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out our previous articles on Genesis 3:1-21;.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Genesis 3:1-21.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Genesis 3:1-21.
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[1] Adele Berlin, “Parallelism,” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 155.
[2] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/imagistic-structures/frame-refrain/
