Rebirth

Gustave Doré, Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden, engraving, 1865

That’s the pattern. Life. Death. New life. Over and over. Again, and again. The entire cosmos are woven into this pattern. We are all a part of it. Including all the mess we make.

This 8 Moves summer sermon series is coming to an end. For the past seven weeks we’ve been walking through the sacred movements of creation one step at a time.

We began with Light, God’s first word to help us see. Then came Water, the womb of creation carrying life in every drop.

From there we stepped onto Land and discovered our footing. We learned about the rhythm of Time, Life, and Work.

​Which was followed up last week with Rest: that holy pause between our being and doing.

Today, we come to the final movement: Rebirth. Which might feel like it doesn’t quite belong. The other seven moves seem to push us forward, and this one seems to be taking us backwards.
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But if you’d been paying attention with what’s come before, you may have noticed the rhythm of creation is circular not linear. And right here—in the space between the verses—we catch a glimpse of how God works the same way.

The man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, “See, the humans have become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now they might reach out their hands and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever”--therefore the Lord God sent them forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken. He drove out the humans, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.                   Genesis 3:20-24

Even if you've never step foot in a church or religious institution, there's a good chance you already know how the story goes. Snake. Fruit. Innocence lost. Ancestors shown the door. Behind them, the gates of paradise swing shut. Yet woven into their grief something is happening.
 
It's not an ending but a new beginning.

I’m sure that’s not what you were taught in this story. The typical Sunday school point of view is: two people eating in a garden doomed the whole human race. Well, that’s always been a hard sell for me. And maybe you too.
 
Does God really hate us that much? I believe the answer is a hard, "No." I think this is true because this story isn’t about us. It’s about God. It's always about God. And about what God can do—even with the stupid things we so often find ourselves doing.
 
I think that's exactly what's happening here. Right on the edge of exile, creation starts over. Humans don’t get the boot, but a reboot. The first of many gracious mulligans we are given. Notice what happened. God doesn’t condemn the two, striking them dead for their naughty behavior. No. Instead of killing them, God makes clothes for them and gives them a new purpose.

As St. Ephrem said, “Even when God closed the garden, God opened the womb of mercy.”
 
The Bible is considered in most religious circles as the Divine Revelation of God. It also seems very apparent that it's the story of a Creator who never gives up on creation. It’s one long tale of God re-planting, re-seeding, re-making things, over and over again. 

The first action begins in a garden. And it culminates in a garden "where there is no need for sun and moon for the glory of God is its light" (Rev. 21:23).
 
From Genesis to Revelations, this resurrection pattern echoes throughout Scripture. Life out of loss. Beginnings hidden in endings. New life out of death. In the center of the story, is Jesus who was arrested in a garden, and after he was put to death, rises in another garden on Easter morning, where he’s mistaken—rightly—as the Gardener of a new creation.
 
The gates of Eden may have shut. But God makes it very clear that the future remains open.
 
So let’s not be too quick to assume exile is punishment from an angry God. It seems to me to be the doorway into the rest of the world. A gentle push into a new kind of life. With Christ as the centerpiece.
 
Yes, there will be thorns to navigate. Wild rivers to cross. And steep mountains to climb. Because struggle is part of creation’s blueprint. But so too is the circular rhythm of God’s mercy and grace.
 
This story clears the ground for new chances—to build, to grow, to find God in unexpected ways. Ways that stretch our faith, deepen our love, and sharpen our presence.
 
Sometimes the only way to find God, or ourself, is to be forced to start again.

We started this year with a horrific fire that reduced neighborhoods to ash. Left hillsides black and barren. And left thousands of people with nothing.
 
Eight months later, wildflowers are blooming. Homes are being rebuilt. Businesses up and running again. Rebirth. New life. New communities rising from the ashes.
 
I think this is what’s happening in Genesis 3. Out of the ashes of Eden, God plants the future. Out of exile, God is writing the story that points us towards eternity, toward the rhythm of God’s heart. Rebirth is not the erasing of the past. It’s God taking from our ashes to grow something new and everlasting.
 
In John’s gospel we meet a religious leader named Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus with questions about eternal life. Jesus tells him, “You must be reborn.” But Nicodemus can’t compute. “How can anyone be born when they’re old?”
 
Jesus isn’t  talking biology. He’s talking baptism of the Spirit. A new birth not of the body, but of the heart. It’s not about squeezing back into our mother’s womb or polishing up the old self. It’s about being transformed from the inside out. Shedding old wounds and tired scripts. And stepping into a new identity rooted in God’s love, grace and hope.

Jesus basically tells him, “If you want to see heaven, let go of the things that keep you in hell.”
 
When a rich young ruler asks the same question, Jesus tells him, “Sell what you own. Give the money to the poor.” In other words: if you want new life, stop clinging to the old one that keeps you from being reborn.
 
Jesus understood this as losing his human ego and embracing his Christ self or Christ consciousness. The power of God making all things new. Paul says it plainly: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17). 

Christ is the catalyst throughout creation for rebirth. Which also leads me to believe resurrection isn’t limited to Jesus. It wasn't a one and done kind of event, but an ongoing process which Richard Rohr calls, “the shape of reality itself.” He argues, God built resurrection into the DNA of creation. We were made to be reborn. And so is everything God creates. I think even scientists agrees with this premise. 
 
Biologists will tell you a tree never really dies. It decomposes, becomes the soil, to give birth to something new. Astrophysicists remind us that the cosmos began with a bang—stars exploding, and from their death came Earth, and life.

That’s the pattern. Life. Death. New life. Over and over. Again, and again. The entire cosmos are woven into this pattern. We are all a part of it. Including all the mess we make.

God turns our failures and losses, into compost for a new garden. Nothing wasted. Nothing lost.
 
This eighth movement returns us to the beginning as God’s Spirit breathes us back to life, restoring the first blessing planted the first garden created in each one of us. New light, new life, new purpose. That’s the power of God, who through Christ never gives up on us.
 
I know a guy who’s battled addiction most of his life. Every relapse was like another exile from Eden. The guilt and shame only caused him to use again. That was the cycle. Until grace showed up.
 
Through a recovery community of love, he discovered God wasn’t   keeping score, but pulling him out of the grave he’d dug for himself. And each time, breathing life back in him. That’s rebirth. God sneaking new life into places we thought were dead, or closed for good.
 
I mention his story because rebirth isn’t   just personal. It’s also communal. It’s a “takes a village” kind of action. Jesus doesn’t   rise from the dead and take off for the hills. He goes straight to his friends. He speaks peace into their fear. Breathes the Spirit upon them. And then sends them out.
 
We are resurrection people, a community of rebirth. Sent to plant hope in scorched places. To breathe peace where there’s chaos. To keep reminding each other that God can make all things new.
 
Anamesa is a sign of what God can do. Two churches stitched together in the space between. Every week this spirit is reborn. Likewise, every day a do over, a new opportunity to re-enter the rhythm of God’s sacred love. And to carry that love forward to those hurt and broken places.
 
Every move we’ve explored has been pointing here. To love. God’s love for us. Our love for God. Our love for one another. Love that takes chaos and turns it into creation. Love that takes dust and turns it into humanity. Love that turns death into life.
 
Thus, love is never a solo act. It’s always happening, all around us and through us, in the space between. Between you and me, us and them. Between forgiving and forgiveness. Healing and being healed.
 
This is where love takes root. And the 8 Moves become the building blocks to a community of love—where together we become God’s Garden. God’s dwelling place. God’s sign of new creation in the world.

Yes, Genesis 3 may look like the end. But it’s the beginning of the story that finds its fullness in Christ.

From Eden to Easter to Anamesa and all the spaces in between, the rhythm is always the same: God’s great love makes all things new.