Garden Dwellers

When listening to Christian music, one might suppose that the entire reason Jesus died on the cross for us was to redeem us from sin and a fallen state. Which of course, is a HUGE thing, but is it the SOLE thing?

Hans Rookmaaker said that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to make us Christian, but to make us more fully human. I love this perspective.

What Jesus really did on the cross, was to invite us back to the garden.

Back to community with the Godhead, back to our rightful place as rulers over creation, back to our rightful place as sinless beings. The cross wasn’t just about redemption from sin, but redemption from the fall.

We should, as garden dwellers, smell things more fragrantly, see things more clearly, taste things more fully. We should represent peace, hope, and love to a fallen generation.

Our history on the earth can be broken down into 3 parts. Creation, the fall, and finally redemption. Christian music would have us believe that we can only speak or sing about redemption (occasionally creation). But the fault in that is that only people in redemption can relate.

The analogy that I use is that as Christians, we are on a big boat called Redeption and we are throwing the life preservers out to those in the sea of the fall. “Look how cool the boat is!” we exclaim. But they dont even know they are drowning. Nor do they want to a part of the exclusive party on the boat with our…I’ll stop there.

But to those in the fall, we aren’t answering the questions they are asking. Sure, Jesus is the answer is our standby and it certainly is true from the big picture. But when the question is “I hate myself and cut myself just to feel the pain”, “Jesus is the answer” isn’t the answer.

We have to be garden dwellers in the fall. We have to come along side of those in the fall and point the way to Jesus.

And if that means my music asks hard questions, some without answers, so be it.

Thoughts?

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Disciple, husband, father..in that order. Dreamer, thinker, inventor, musician, orator, wordsmith, entrepreneur...not in that order. 2x Peoples Choice Ice Cream Champ.

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