Tag: cosmic geography

Before the Throne — Chapter Three — On the Mountain Top

This was part three of a sermon series preached at City South Presbyterian Church in 2024. You can listen to this on our podcast, or watch the video.

There is a song you might know — an old nonsense song.

“The grand old Duke of York…”

Sing it in your head.

“He had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of the hill, and then he marched them down again. And when they were up, they were up — and when they were down they were down — and when they were only halfway up they were neither up nor down.”

We are thinking about heaven as a mountain top this morning, and I guess we are trying to figure out where we are — are we up, are we down, are we neither up nor down — or are we both up and down at the same time?

How are you going with this concept we are unpacking in this series — the idea that we are not just alive on earth, at the bottom of the mountain, and clearly not just in heaven, on the top of the mountain — but in this overlap — both in heaven and on earth — raised and seated with Jesus so that we are before the throne of God in heaven? It is tricky, is it not? And I wonder if it is trickier for us because we do not have the same relationship with our bodies and with physical space that the people in the Bible had, or the same understanding of heaven and earth as overlapping realities.

See, God’s people in the Old Testament had their own songs — not nonsense ones like the Grand Old Duke of York, but songs they sang every year, every time they climbed a mountain, to teach them how to live in space and time as people who lived with God.

Israel had a physical mountain — the temple mountain of Jerusalem, Zion — where God’s house was on top of the hill as a symbol of his heavenly throne room but also a picture of him dwelling with them. We will look at this structure more over the next couple of weeks. Today we are looking at the mountain itself, and the mountain top as a picture of heaven.

Every time the people of Israel climbed the mountain to go to the temple for feasts and festivals they would sing these songs from the book of Psalms. You will find them in our Bibles with the heading “a psalm of ascent.” They start in Psalm 120 and there are 14 of them. These were songs to be sung on the road, songs to connect the singer’s body to a journey from the bottom of the mountain to the house of God — a sort of ascent from earth to heaven in the imagination of the singer.

The second of these Psalms starts with the singer gazing to the top of the mountain — Zion — looking to the peak, to the temple, and towards the heavenly throne where God, the maker of heaven and earth, sits as helper (Psalm 121:1). The singer is not up yet, but they are on their way.

Some of the songs seem to have come from the other side of exile, after the southern tribes return from Babylon, looking back at how God restored them to the land and restored their fortunes, bringing joy and laughter (Psalm 126:1–2). Just keep that idea in mind and hold it alongside the picture of mountain life in Hebrews 12:18-29, maybe especially:

“But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

These Psalms were songs God’s people sang all the way through to the time of Jesus — they were probably even on the lips of the crowd as Jesus made the journey up the mountain at Passover to be crucified, to truly end the exile, restore Jerusalem, and rebuild a real temple in the place of the one built by Herod about fifty years earlier. People might not have been feeling this joy when Jesus arrived.

But they certainly had this mountain at the heart of their imagination of heaven on earth — the idea that God’s blessing to the world flowed down to Zion, and then down the mountain into the rest of the world (Psalm 128:5). Because Zion — this mountain — was his dwelling place forever and ever, where his throne is (Psalm 132:13–14). This is the picture of heaven on earth in this song book. People sang these songs while climbing the mountain — orienting themselves towards heavenly life and the idea that they were about to enter heavenly space.

Now, we have to be careful here, because this idea of Zion, specifically, the Zion of this world — an earthy mountain in Jerusalem as God’s dwelling place — can lead to all sorts of heaven-on-earth projects that end up looking more like hell on earth, creating death and destruction as we take building heaven on earth into our own hands.

Where the Bible depicts this forever reality, right at the end, being God’s act of renewing creation and removing the curse of sin and death — when the New Jerusalem emerges in Revelation it is heaven being brought to earth, not humans building a bridge between heaven and earth (Revelation 21:2).

The Bible has a story about how that goes wrong right at the beginning — the story of Babel, an attempt to build a stairway to heaven (Genesis 11:4), which, when we looked at Genesis, we saw was a common impulse of nations around Israel.

This looks like a mountain, but it is the ruins of a staircase temple called “the house of the mountain.”

This is the kind of thing you do when your model of reality has heaven in the skies above a dome.

There are dangers when we try to bring heaven down to earth on our terms and for our benefit — not just at a political scale, but in our own lives and what we pursue. But these Psalms and that journey up the mountain to the top — they are capturing something of what we are trying to do this term as we see that we have been raised with Jesus and seated with him at the right hand of God. Part of setting our hearts on things above, and our minds on things above, not earthly things (Colossians 3:1–2), is a bit like the Psalm singers who looked to the mountain in order to look towards God (Psalm 121:1). We are learning what it means to live lives shaped by the top of the mountain, and having been there — and not being halfway up between heaven and earth — but living in this sweet spot as heaven-on-earth people.

And if you caught this in the bit we read from Hebrews, the writer suggests we should understand ourselves as mountain-top people. They say: “We have come to this mountain, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22). This is where we are in some real sense. And they draw on more of the Bible’s use of mountains as heaven-on-earth spaces to shape our imaginations.

Saying: “You are not on a mountain that can be touched but that is burning with fire and stormy and scary, where if someone or some animal touched it they would die” (Hebrews 12:18), where Moses was so afraid of God’s presence he trembled with fear (Hebrews 12:21). He is talking about Sinai, and the Exodus story. You are not on that mountain, but on Zion.

He is tapping into a mountain-top story that runs through the Old Testament. If you have read my other ‘sermons as articles’ or tracked with me for a while, you might have heard me talk about mountains before, but maybe not mountain tops — so here is a quick re-cap. See what I did there — re-cap…

I reckon we — or at least I — mostly think of the Bible and its events as though geography does not matter. We are so removed from the physical landscape of these events, but so often the narrator will point us to the environment, or assume we know it, or as the Scriptures unfold will paint more details in for us. So we are not just imagining heaven and trying to picture things this series, but engaging our imaginations to think about life on earth differently too, and maybe to think ourselves into what is called the “cosmic geography” of the first readers of these stories.

So the first mountain in the Bible is — according to Ezekiel — the mountain garden of Eden. The heaven-on-earth garden dwelling of God we looked at last week. Ezekiel describes the location of this garden as “the holy mount of God” (Ezekiel 28:13–14). Trust me when I say there are lots of other mountain moments in the Bible and it can get quite confusing trying to distinguish them all — you can ask me about some of them later.

The big story after Eden, and the escape from Egypt, is the shift from Sinai, in the wilderness, to Zion, in the promised land — the new Eden.

Sinai is where where God descends to meet Israel in the wilderness, and makes the top of the mountain a gateway into heaven (which then becomes the model for the Tabernacle as a ‘mobile mountain top’). The mountain is burning like a smelting furnace because God is going to forge Israel to be his priests, people who bring heaven to earth (Exodus 19). Moses eventually goes up this mountain with some of the leaders of Israel and gets this heavenly vision of God.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.

— Exodus 24:9-10

Take note here, because this account does not describe God, but it does describe this floor under his feet — at the ceiling of the mountain top — this bright blue. That is what lapis lazuli is — this bright blue sparkling pavement. Maybe something to add to the visual bank. At this point these leaders eat and drink, seeing God (Exodus 24:11).

Then Moses goes further, beyond the ceiling, it seems, and into God’s glorious, bright presence — on the top of the mountain (Exodus 24:15–16). To people looking on it looks like he has stepped into the brightness, the smelting fire (Exodus 24:17). And ultimately he comes down glowing, radiating, bringing some of this heavenly glory to earth (Exodus 34:29).

For the writer of Hebrews this is the scary mountain, and it is not our home. They sum up this movement described in the Old Testament from mountain top to mountain top. There are songs about this in the Psalms. Songs like the one that sings to other mountains, this Gentile holy mountain, Mount Bashan, aka Mount Hermon (Psalm 68:15–16). We looked at it in Matthew as the mountain where Jesus is transfigured [note: I didn’t quite get to posting that one as an article, but the podcast is here], and as the mountain where people believed the Nephilim landed in Genesis 6 (at least according to the book of Enoch). Anyway, this other mountain is described as being envious because it is not God’s home. Mountains do things in the Psalms like singing God’s praise. But this one is envious because God is going to choose a different mountain to reign on and dwell forever. He is on the move with his heavenly host from Sinai, in the wilderness, to his sanctuary, his mountain-top home (Psalm 68:17). Which other Psalms explicitly name as Zion, the mountain of Jerusalem, his throne room (Psalm 132:13–14).

The prophets are full of mountains too. Isaiah talks about the end of exile involving a new mountain home for God, on the highest of mountains, where all nations will flock to this place — this heavenly throne. Going up the mountain, ascending to the house of God to learn his ways, the ways of heaven, in order to take those ways down to earth (Isaiah 2:2–3). Isaiah also pictures a mountain, “this mountain,” being the place where God would prepare a feast, and a mountain being where he would destroy the ultimate enemy of all people — the enemy that enters the story when humans leave the first mountain, Eden — destroying death (Isaiah 25:6–8). And he pictures foreigners coming to bind themselves to Yahweh as his priestly people too, and being brought to God’s mountain and given joy in his house of prayer (Isaiah 56:7). Again — remember the joy in the bit of Hebrews we read. This comes from entering this sort of heaven-on-earth reality, temple life, mountain life.

Isaiah says when disaster strikes, people who cry out to dead, breathless gods will be carried off in the wind, blown like breath, while those who take refuge in God will inherit the earth and possess his mountain (Isaiah 57:13), because God — in the prophets — lives on a high and holy place, the mountain, while also dwelling with the lowly (Isaiah 57:15).

This mountain imagery is everywhere in the Old Testament shaping the imaginative world of God’s people as they climbed a literal mountain to meet with God and then sought to live as his heaven-on-earth people.

But like the Grand Old Duke of York’s men, Israel was never sure where they were. They kept living as though they were shaped by earth, worshipping man-made idols in Babel-like temples. They had all the songs in the world, but they did not have God’s Spirit making them heaven-on-earth people.

This is what has changed for the church after Jesus comes as the heaven-on-earth human who also is the human-in-heaven Son of God.

Jesus comes as God’s king fulfilling Psalm 2, as the king installed at his right hand, on Zion, the holy mountain (Psalm 2:6). Jesus climbs that mountain in Jerusalem, perhaps singing these Psalms, to be killed on a mountain, but then raised and seated at God’s right hand (Ephesians 2:6). And as we receive God’s Spirit we are also now people who are raised and seated with him, at God’s right hand — on the mountain top.

We are like Moses, but different. We are now — as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians — able to be in God’s presence and contemplate his glory (2 Corinthians 3:18); that bright light from a few weeks ago, past the barrier, the blue stones, and in the throne room, being smelted into his image as we encounter this glory, by the Spirit.

This is what the writer of Hebrews is picking up too. We are on the mountain; not Sinai, not even old Zion, but the heavenly mountain-top city that God will bring to earth when he makes all things new (Hebrews 12:22). And as we go up to there, but also live down here, we are being forged to live these heaven-on-earth lives that shine like heaven; not building Babel or trying to reclaim Zion, but living this life of joy and hope, even in suffering, described in Hebrews.

Hebrews gives us some more images to contemplate as we pray and dwell on the mountain top. They invite us to picture thousands and thousands of angels, that heavenly host from the Psalms, in joyful assembly (Hebrews 12:22–23) — a massive gathering. That is what the word “church” means — we have come to this gathering too, the gathering of the firstborn, of Jesus.

We have come to the Father, the judge of all, to gather with all those made perfect — humans, together — to Jesus who brought us into this new covenant, this new arrangement with God by his blood as the mediator, the true priest (Hebrews 12:23–24). And this comes with a new allegiance. We are, if we are going to dwell here, going to be people who listen to the one who speaks from the throne, and not refuse him. If we are heaven dwellers we have this bigger responsibility than those who only heard God on earth and turned away from him (Hebrews 12:25).

Hebrews 12 has some heavy stuff. But look what it says — this voice shook the earth, but now promises to shake the earth and the heavens (Hebrews 12:26). This is a promise to make all things new; it is the same as the vision from Revelation — to bring heaven and earth together into this unshakable forever reality where God will dwell with his people (Hebrews 12:27). We live in this heavenly mountain place hoping and expecting that God will act in this way in the future and give us life in this kingdom that cannot be shaken. And what should we do with this hope? This picture of the future? As mountain-top dwellers already, we should be thankful and worship God with reverence and awe, because the God enthroned in Zion is actually the same smelting God from Sinai. But we come to him as children he loves — united to the Son he loves — to be transformed, not destroyed (Hebrews 12:28–29).

It is keeping our eyes fixed on the top of the mountain — not just “as we ascend” but seeing that we are already secure and home there — that is meant to shape us for life on earth. We are not neither up nor down, we are both. Just before this stuff about mountains the writer of Hebrews opens this section with another image that is meant to shape our life on earth — another heavenly image.

They say: “Since we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses” — this is not about the angels, it is talking about all the faithful examples of faith and hope in Jesus (Hebrews 12:1); in God’s promises through history listed in Hebrews 11. Since we are captured by this heavenly vision we should throw off the earthly stuff that hinders — things that prevent us seeing reality this way, and the sins that entangle and want to keep us living lives stuck on earth. Lives of sin and destruction and rebellion against God.

Sin is the stuff where our imaginations get captured by worldly things and false gods so we get trapped in the unreality that this world is all there is. Hebrews says throw that off, and do it not just by looking at it and trying to see worldly things differently — do it by fixing our eyes upon Jesus — the one at the top of the mountain, raised and enthroned at God’s right hand — the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the one who ascended to the top of the mountain not just showing us the way, or carving out the path, not just marching us up to the top of the hill, but carrying us there. We should fix our eyes on him — this, too, is an act of imagining the throne room of God — and we should be shaped by his example. For the joy set before him — his own vision of the top of the mountain, his own vision of God’s unshakable kingdom becoming a reality — he suffered and endured the cross. His vision of heavenly life and God’s faithfulness, this joy being a picture that drove him — he endured the cross and then sat down, enthroned, in heaven at the right hand of God (Hebrews 12:2–4). This vision, and this example of life shaped by it, change how we live on earth.

Keeping our eyes on heaven and the throne together is the Bible’s antidote for smashing into one another and pulling each other down. And it is the antidote, it seems, for sexual immorality — for using human bodies for idolatry (Hebrews 12:16). Thinking other human bodies, or our own, are where we experience heaven — that sex and sensuality are the ultimate goods, or our goal for fulfilment. This is a form of godlessness. It, and other forms of being entangled by worldly things, are a form of the mistake Esau made back in Genesis when he gave up his inheritance, his place in the family, for a single bowl of food to satisfy his hunger. We can get so caught up with visions and fantasies and imaginings of life on earth — good things we want to grab hold of at all costs, things we desire: sex, money, comfort, pleasure, holidays, joy — and miss the joy that comes from eternal hope in Jesus. Not seeing that we are located already on the mountain top, the heavenly mountain top, and longing for the unshakable kingdom to come as God brings heaven and earth together forever.

We are shaped for life in this world — to be those who reflect God’s presence — by spending time in his presence “on top of the mountain.” This is the pattern of the Bible: it is Sinai (Exodus 24). It is the calling for Israel as those who ascend the mountain to meet with God in the temple in their feasts and festivals (Psalm 121). And it is there at the end of Matthew’s Gospel in the Great Commission. The disciples meet with Jesus on a mountain top; they encounter the risen Jesus as he is about to be raised to the heavenly throne. They worship him (Matthew 28:16–17), and they are sent down the mountain to make disciples, those being transformed into his image (Matthew 28:18–20). And it is what the writer of Hebrews is inviting us to do (Hebrews 12).

For us, this series is about imagining what it is like to enter God’s presence as we pray; as we close our eyes to the things of this world and open them to heaven, so that when we are living on earth we are living as people who also dwell in heaven with God, awaiting, longing for, anticipating, modelling, the plans he has for earth. We are thinking about what it means to set our hearts on things above — to lift our eyes to the mountain — and see God.

Last chapter I introduced that idea of meditation on the Bible where we pair propositional ideas with poetic imagery from the text of the Bible. And maybe the writer of Hebrews is actually modelling that. As they place us on the mountain as a picture of heavenly life, seated with Jesus. In doing this we are brought into the imaginative realm of the Psalms; they become our songs. We are invited to sing and meditate on these words, fixing our eyes upon the mountain, singing songs of praise, worshipping God — because he, and the author and perfecter of our faith, are enthroned on this holy mountain, and we are invited to come before his throne.

Psalm 48 is an interesting one to meditate on, calling us to praise the God of this mountain. You can imagine someone in Israel’s peak, in Jerusalem, looking down the mountain to the surrounding country, or at the other peaks in view, singing:

“Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion — the city of the King” (Psalm 48:2).

Or while wandering through the temple, singing about meditating on God’s unfailing love (Psalm 48:9).

Or wandering around the walls of the city imagining its strength and security (Psalm 48:12–13), so long as God dwells there. And you can imagine someone singing it in exile, longingly looking back, but also hoping for renewal — a safe and secure home restored with God like he promises.

We too can sing about God shining forth from Zion — a beautiful heaven-on-earth hilltop, with God shining forth — where Zion reflects Sinai (Psalm 50:2–3). We can imagine ourselves on the mountain top with Moses walking through that crystal barrier into God’s throne room. We can sing the Psalms of Ascent, lifting our eyes and hearts to the mountain of heaven, where we are raised and seated with Christ so that we do not get caught up in the things of this earth — as people who do not live halfway up or down, but both up and down, bringing heavenly life to earth.

It is interesting that when Paul talks about setting our minds and hearts on things above he encourages us to let the message of Christ dwell among us richly as we teach and admonish each other through Psalms, and as we sing (Colossians 3:16). Owning and meditating on the Psalms as our songs fulfilled in Jesus, because we now dwell on the mountain with him, waiting for him to make all things new. This is part of living heaven-on-earth life now.

Maybe this week you could climb a mountain and read the Psalms of Ascent, alone or with a few other people, picturing life on the heavenly mountain top, spending some time with God away from the things that hinder or the sins that entangle — fixing your eyes on Jesus, and enjoying the future he has secured for you. We do not actually need to physically climb a mountain, but maybe it would help to engage your body and think differently about the lay of the land. Let’s head to the mountain top in our minds now in prayer.

Origin Story — East of Eden (and the path back)

This is an amended (and extended) version of a sermon I preached at City South Presbyterian Church in 2022. If you’d prefer to listen to this (spotify link), or watch it on a video, you can do that. It runs for 38 minutes. I’m going to be honest, 90% of the reason I started posting these sermons is that I think the title of this post is pretty great.The original introduction to this sermon, which was preached the day after the Federal Election in 2022, I’ve adapted that slightly for this blog version

In Genesis 4 we meet two brothers; two brothers offering two paths in response to humanity losing access to the Garden of Eden. We see a branching of the family tree; a choice between two lines of seed, with two ‘parents’ shaping the tree and the fruit it produces.

Like a good origin story this is where we start to set up the tension that is going to drive the narrative, we’ll see threads that take us to the end of our chunk of Genesis, but that pay off at the conclusion of the story, so we’re going to take up a couple of these threads — first by really looking at where the human family we’ve got our lens zoomed in on find themselves, and then by following them through the story of the Bible all the way up to Jesus. We’re seeing the start of two feuding family lines; the beastly line, children of the Serpent, and the line that might produce an image bearer who’ll lead people back past the guardian cherubim, into the presence of God and to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24).

Genesis chapter four deals with a major change of scene that came about in the events of chapter three; this human family find themselves exiled; outside of the Garden — the eastern entrance to the garden has been sealed off by a cherubim wielding a sword (maybe imagine this as a gate).

This move east, away from Eden, is going to be a significant repeated thread that’ll take this family all the way to Babylon in chapter 11; it’s a device to pay attention to, and to have in our imagination that the gateway back to God’s presence, his heaven on earth space, sealed off by cherubim is reached by heading west. Gates on the east of places like this will repeat over and over again through the Bible’s story. We’re going to be on the look out, ultimately, for both God’s presence returning to a place like Eden, and a Son of Adam leading the way back into God’s presence, and the seeds for both these storylines start in this origin story.

The cherubim guarding the way — people being kept out of the Holy of Holies where God dwells on earth — is a big obstacle to be overcome through the unfolding narrative, so is the idea that people now are going to approach God with a gap that requires sacrifice, and that’s where we land in chapter four. Adam and Eve failed to act as one in chapter three, but now they become one, so that Eve, the mother of the living (Genesis 3:20), brings forth a son, Cain (Genesis 4:1). They’re being fruitful and multiplying — and the question framed by the narrative so far is, has she brought forth an image bearer, who will rule the wold representing God, and maybe lead people back towards the Garden, or a beast? They’re fruitful and multiply again, and along comes Abel (Genesis 4:2). Two Sons of Adam; sons of man; that’s what Adam’s name means.

Abel shows a mastery over the animals, keeping flocks, while Cain does what humans are made to do in the garden; the task required for the uninhabited and unpopulated land to become fruitful; he works the ground (Genesis 4:2). He’s an earth man working the earth. So far so good.

They both bring the fruits of their labours to God as a sacrifice. Abel brings the firstfruits — the good, fatty, portions of his first born animal, while Cain just brings “some” fruit of the ground; the narrative doesn’t suggest its anything particularly special.

We’re not told where Cain and Abel are taking their sacrifice; but at this point it seems this human family is dwelling outside of the garden, but still in Eden, by the gates with the cherubim. There’s some fun stuff we’ll get to below around the Tabernacle that means I reckon readers of the Torah, tracing the development of some imagery, would imagine Cain and Abel taking their sacrifices up to the dwelling place of God, the Garden, to the barrier, to the cherubim guarding the way to God’s presence, knowing they can’t get in, but maybe seeking to restore themselves to being God’s representative people through sacrifice.

But it doesn’t go so well.

If you read the rest of Genesis you’ll see a type-scene beginning here; a conflict playing out between brothers. Humans were made to represent God together, and it’s not just husband and wife turned against each other from the curse in Genesis 3, but siblings, as firstborn and secondborn compete to be the child of promise. This type-scene repetition includes Jacob and hairy-beastly man Esau; and maybe later stories from the same big story can shape the way we read the dynamic here as these two brothers compete to represent God as the serpent-crushing line by offering a sacrifice. Or maybe only one brother is competing: Cain. Maybe that explains why there’s a little bit of implied tension between them as God receives Abel’s sacrifice and rejects Cain’s (Genesis 4:4-5). We’re not told why God favours one gift and not the other here; the New Testament book of Hebrews gives us an interpretation that says Abel was acting by faith, and so produced a better offering (Hebrews 11:4).

When his offering is rejected, Cain, the ground-worker gets a test; will he be a son of dying-beastly Adam? A son of the serpent? Or Eden-gardening Adam? Will he repeat his parent’s failure in response to his disappointment. Will he know Good from evil? God says “Sin — is crouching at the door” — like a beast — wanting to devour him — like the serpent wanted to devour his parents (Genesis 4:7).

And before we find out where Abel, the younger son, might be able to lead his family after his sacrifices are accepted, Cain makes a sacrifice of Abel in a field (Genesis 4:8). Abel makes an animal sacrifice then Cain acts like an animal and sacrifices his brother. Where he’s meant to sow life, he sows death. Abel’s blood, his flesh, is given back to the ground; dust to dust. 

This sacrifice shows sin has devoured him; he’s been swallowed up and become a bloody swallower of life; beastly; opposed to God’s plans for fruitfulness and multiplication. Now the land isn’t just desolate and empty, or a source of fruitful human life, it’s soaked in blood. Cain has become part of the seed of the serpent, its ‘striking’ offspring attacking the seed of his mother, Eve.

And just like in the garden, where God came to see his folks after their sin and asked “where are you?” now he asks “where is your brother?” (Genesis 4:9). Cain knows, but he pretends he doesn’t, he gets shifty — his dad owned up when God came looking, but Cain doesn’t. “Am I my brothers keeper?”

Well. Yes. He’s meant to be. Humans are meant to be one in their task of representing God; cultivating and guarding his presence in the world; defeating the crouching beast, and yet, he has become his brother’s killer; he is his brother’s keeper at this point; he knows exactly where he has hidden Abel, but he can’t hide what he’s done. God says his brother’s blood is crying out from the ground — telltale blood — calling out for justice (Genesis 4:10).

As a result, instead of Abel leading the family back towards the garden through his acceptable sacrifice, Cain’s unacceptable sacrifice means he’s sent further east; out of God’s presence, away from Eden, and the ground he once worked turns against him (Genesis 4:11-12, 16). Cain becomes a picture of the human condition in our exile from God. This serpent-like line is marked by violence, grasping, and vengeance. The ground has received Abel, but it will not receive Cain.

The garden was made as a place to rest with God and enjoy his hospitality; there’ll be no rest for Cain (Genesis 4:12, 14). People were blessed to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28), Cain is cursed (Genesis 4:11). He becomes a “restless wanderer” at war with the world — the ground is not going to yield fruit for him; he’s pushed out of God’s hospitality into an inhospitable world — further east (Genesis 4:16).

There’s more than a hint in this chapter that there might actually be other human families out there — outside of Eden, away from the Garden-temple, God’s dwelling place on the earth. Cain is scared people out there will kill him… He’s being driven from God’s presence, and he’ll be devoured. He’s got this picture of other people acting like animals. Violent killers who take vengeance. A world ‘out there’ that is red in tooth and claw.

At the moment with our camera zoomed in on Adam and Eve and their two boys there aren’t other people in the picture; we’ve been looking at this is the family tasked in the story with bearing God’s image in the Garden Temple and perhaps cultivating that life to spread it out into the world where the people Cain is scared of live. It’s a conundrum the narrative gives us, but doesn’t resolve — it just assumes killer people are going to be out there, outside the borders of God’s lands.

There are other ways to try to resolve that narrative conundrum, like they could be a bunch of siblings who’re about to go out into the world along with Cain, who might kill him, but they seem to be out there already, and I think it’s worth just sitting with the story the way it works, keeping the lens firmly on this family line we’re zoomed in on.

But here’s the point of the narrative — it’s not the people who are the real obstacle or threat to life, it’s being hidden from God’s presence (Genesis 4:14). Cain is sent out, exiled, with a mark from God protecting him. God promises that anybody who kills him will suffer vengeance (Genesis 4:15). We get this cycle of bloody violence, rather than people guarding and keeping with one another, ruling together, they’re murderous and celebrating their viciousness (Genesis 4:19-24). Cain goes out from God’s presence into this world. He’s exiled. He lives in the land of Nod, which is the Hebrew word for homelessness. He becomes homeless East of Eden (Genesis 4:16).

Cain finds a wife, out there away from his family, and he founds a city — a home away from home — a city in the land of homelessness away from God’s presence. If Eden, as a garden, was a walled enclosure marking out God’s presence and hospitality this city is an echo of Eden but without God’s presence (Genesis 4:17). In the midst of the story of a family tree we start getting some culture; some cultivation of creation; some fruitfulness and creativity; a weird origin story for instruments and farming tools and methods of farming livestock (Genesis 4:20-22). They’re taking the raw matter of creation and making stuff; they’re ruling. This city might look nice; the music might be good and the tools might help humans overcome the cursed ground, but there are makers of death in this family line. Cain might be avenged seven-fold; his descendant Lamech is a violent avenger who’ll kill a man just for wounding him (Genesis 4:23-24).

This is a beastly city; a city of violence and bloodshed and vengeance, in a land of ‘no-home’ — it’s the furthest thing you can get from the Garden in Eden; the home of life and generativity and God’s fruitful presence.

But the narrator takes us back to the land of Eden, outside the garden. Eve, the mother of the living, celebrates — God overcomes Cain’s beastly attempt to end the line of seed from Eve — he grants her a son, Seth, who has a son. We’re also told that at this point, people begin to call on the name of the Lord — while those out in Nod are shedding blood, there’s a little note of hope in this line (Genesis 4:25-26).

And we get a re-cap around the line of seed that the narrative is going to follow. Cain’s line is a dead-end that creates death, but this recap goes back to the beginning. God created mankind in the likeness of God, blessing them, male and female, and calling the earthling, Adam, then Adam’s son Seth is made in Adam’s own image and likeness — a chip off the old block. We’ve seen how an ‘image’ in the ancient world was an idol statue, or the king as an embodiment of the gods, part of being the image of or the likeness of someone, or of God, is also caught up in this idea of being a son or daughter (this idea gets picked up in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, which calls Adam the “son of God.”) (Genesis 5:1-4).

A line of image bearing humans continues. God works despite human beastliness towards creating a serpent-crusher who will lead humanity back from the east, from restless wandering and a sense of homelessness into rest in a garden-like home.

These threads get picked up through the narrative of the Bible. People keep heading further east. People keep acting more like Cain — and the Serpent — than Adam’s purpose in the garden. We’re landing this series in Genesis 11, with another move east, to the Plain of Shinar, where humans build a tower called Babel (that’s Babylon), which, as it turns out, is also due East of Jerusalem. When the southern kingdom of Judah is exiled, like Cain, they’re sent eastwards again. The Genesis origin story is a story that helps exiled Israel understand their own predicament; they, too, have behaved like Adam and Eve, and Cain, like children of the Serpent.

Through this origin story God’s also going to call his people out of Babylon; starting with Abram, who comes from Ur of the Chaldeans — that’s Babylon — to begin a people of promise; a nation of priests; calling people back into his presence. In that nation of priests we get little Edens; little pictures of the paradise lost, not just the fruitful land around the garden, but the garden itself. We meet a bunch of people who look like they might lead people back to life with God; Abraham, Moses, The priests, David, Solomon and all their stories have echoes of this story.

Moses enters God’s presence, on the mountain and then builds a tabernacle, where there’s an atonement where blood from sacrifices would be taken up to two cherubim, who were sitting, guarding, the Ark as they guarded the garden. The Ark is the symbol of God’s heavenly throne, where he says he’d meet with his people “between the Cherubim” (Exodus 25:22). The ark was placed behind a curtain embroided with Cherubim (Exodus 26:1, 31) who are guarding the way, separating the Holy place, like Eden, where God’s people could dwell from the most Holy Place, God’s dwelling place — like the Garden. The curtain was a barrier like the gateway separating the garden from the rest of Eden.

The entry to the Tabernacle is on the eastern side of a courtyard (Exodus 27:13-19). To come towards God was to move from the east, back towards the curtain and the Cherubim; towards his dwelling place. Moses and his priestly family end up guarding the tabernacle; living to the east of this door; a bit like the Cherubim guards Eden; living at the doorway to God’s presence and caring for the Sanctuary.  Anyone else who approaches the way to life; to God’s presence, was to be put to death (Numbers 3:38, note the word for “caring for” or “keeping” here in Numbers is the same word used in God’s instructions to Adam in Eden).  Once a year, a priest — starting with Moses’s brother Aaron — would sacrifice animals (like Abel) to make atonement for sin — to bring God and his people together again. He couldn’t come past the Cherubim whenever he wanted; or he’d die — but this time it’s the presence of God in the cloud, above the ark and between the Cherubim, that’s the risk (Leviticus 16).

One day a year that priest would go behind the curtain; entering the Eden-like place, or specifically, the Garden-like space, where God is present, in order to sprinkle the blood of animals on the atonement cover, under the Cherubim. There are even two goats where ones blood is spilled and the other is exiled into the wilderness. There are echoes of the Cain and Abel story here, and throughout the story of the Old Testament. Sacrifices to God are offered where God dwells as an expression of a desire to be one with God again; to dwell with him in the Garden. For Cain and Abel these sacrifices are made in Eden, outside the Garden excluded from entrance, for Israel, it’s in the Tabernacle, then the Temple. In all these places the barrier remains.

And people in Israel keep acting so much like Cain that they get tossed to the east.

At one point in the story, and this’ll be significant below, Israel acts almost exactly like Cain, killing the people who are meant to lead them back to God in the temple. There’s this guy named Zechariah — who’s different to the Zechariah the book of the Bible is named after… they kill him in the Temple courts (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). Chronicles tells the sorry story of Israel becoming like Babylon, and so being sent east to Babylon; when that happens Babylon takes the whole Temple set up with them (2 Chronicles 36:15-21).

When Ezekiel the prophet talks about this moment he talks about God departing from Israel’s Temple with the cherubim; the presence leaves, heading to the east, first of the temple, then the city (Ezekiel 10:18-19), stopping on the mountain to the east of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 11:23), which is called the Mount of Olives. According to Ezekiel, Israel won’t come back to God, from the EAST, from exile in Babylon and back into God’s presence until God’s presence has first returned to Jerusalem. Ezekiel is brought, in a vision, to a gate facing east where he sees God’s glory returning to his Temple through an eastern gate (Ezekiel 43:1-4). Once that happens humans — first Israel, then the world, can be restored to garden-like life with God in a new Temple as the world becomes a picture of Eden restored; centred around a mountain temple facing East, where living water flows out to give life to the nations (Ezekiel 47, note Ezekiel 28 has earlier pictured Eden as a garden on a holy mountain in verses 13-14).

By the end of the Old Testament, via the prophets, we’re waiting for God’s presence to return to a Temple in Jerusalem; an Eden space, in order to dwell with people again and we’re waiting for someone like Abel, or a priest, to come and make a sacrifice God will accept; one who will get us past the Cherubim and re-open access to life in his presence; a human from the line of Serpent-Crushing seed who is not, like Cain, a beastly child of the snake. We’re waiting for someone who might bring us back into life with God; the paradise we lost.

And the New Testament picks up these threads ties them together in the person of Jesus. Luke tells us he’s from this line of seed; he’s the image bearing son of Adam, and Seth (Luke 3:23-38, especially 38). At the climax of the Gospel story Jesus heads towards Jerusalem. John’s called him God’s glory tabernacling in flesh and a walking Temple (John 1:14, 2:19-20). As he approaches Jerusalem, he approaches from the East; from the Mount of Olives (Matthew 21:1). He comes in to the city via the eastern gates and then enters the Temple court — moving from east to west towards the Holy of Holies, and he sets about cleaning up the sacrificial system, because people’s sacrifices — their sin offerings — have been corrupted by those running the temple (Matthew 21:12-13). He enters the Temple to proclaim judgment on the people running it, including the woes he pronounces on the Pharisees who ‘sit in Moses’ seat, who aren’t ‘keeping the Temple’ like Moses’ family, or leading people to God, they’re shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven on them (Matthew 23:13). He calls them a brood of Vipers — serpent children — who imitate Cain, throwing back to both the murder of Abel and of Zechariah the priest between “the altar and the sanctuary,” which is maybe how we should picture the location of both Zechariah’s death in the Temple, and Abel’s death at the gateway to Eden (Matthew 23:33- 23:35).

The blood of these innocent people is on the hands of Jerusalem’s leaders because they have become like Cain; like the Serpent; a violent and oppressive people whose city has become like Babylon.

Then he talks about himself as the Son of Man; the true son of Adam; who’s going to come like “lightning from the East” (Matthew 24:27) to give a place in God’s kingdom to those who are blessed by God; a kingdom prepared from the creation of the world (Matthew 24:30).  He’s going to enter God’s presence and sit at his right hand (Matthew 26:64), but before he gets there there’ll be more blood on the hands of the humans who take up Cain’s line; the line of the Serpent. Jesus will become like Abel, and like Zechariah; as he’s put on trial the priests are joined by the people of the city baying for blood, and they crucify him.

But Jesus’ arrival in the city, and even his death, is a demonstration of God’s glorious presence returning to Jerusalem to judge the city and its Temple, making access to life with God possible through the sacrifice of a firstborn. So the Temple curtain tears (Matthew 27:50-51); the curtain embroided with Cherubim, separating humans from the Holy place and containing God’s nominal dwelling place on earth (he doesn’t return to dwell in the Holy of Holies in the rebuilt Temple in the Old Testament). This Temple in Jerusalem has been replaced with one that will make people holy, bringing actual atonement so we can come in to God’s presence again.

This is how the book of Hebrews picks up what happens in the death of Jesus picking up the threads that run from exile from the Garden, to Cain and Abel, through the Tabernacle and the curtain and the altar — it says we’ve been made holy through his sacrifice; restored to being the kind of people who can live in his presence (Hebrews 10:10-11) by this one human who can lead us back into the Garden. Jesus replaces the sacrifices that couldn’t take away our sins in the temple and he has entered heaven to sit with God, having made one sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:12). His entering this Most Holy Place; the place behind the curtain makes him — his body through his sacrifice — a new and living way; a way past the cherubim and into life with God. Through his sacrifice we can draw near to God because atonement has been made and we have been washed and purified (Hebrews 10:21-24). His blood “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” because while the tell-tale blood of Abel cried out for justice his sacrifices, even his death, did not bring humanity back into the Garden; Jesus, on the other hand, brings us into the city of the Living God, his heaven-on-earth dwelling place (Hebrews 12:22-23); the new Jerusalem the prophet Ezekiel saw as the end of Exile, and that John pictures for us in Revelation (Revelation 21-22). Jesus becomes the way maker; the mediator of a new covenant who brings us back to God; the media or way we use to come back to God, Jesus’ blood as the first born son sacrificed on our behalf is what Abel’s faithfulness anticipated. All those threads from the start of the Bible’s story  are tied together in our origin story, the Gospel. This is the story that shapes our lives; the story of how we find ourselves back in the promised land; the garden.

We might pin our hope on all sorts of leaders to carry us back to the promised land; modern politicians promise lots and deliver little. This can be disappointing, but our politics is not exhausted in our vote; we practice politics in where we give our time, our money, our energy, to building the city — the ‘polis’ — we want to live in; whether it’s Babylon or the New Jerusalem — and we do this knowing that it’s actually Jesus who builds the city, we’re just ambassadors popping up little embassies in our households and the communities we start, or occupy. Our businesses. The kids we educate.

We have to choose our family — our story — not red or blue, but Jesus or the Serpent.

Our politicians won’t lead us back to a promised land; they’ll make plenty of promises, but the world offers cities built by Cain, by children of the Serpent; Babylons, and old Jerusalems when we humans turn to violence to solve our problems, or live seeking our own way to heaven-on-earth.

But if we plant ourselves in the story of Jesus; in his family tree, as children of God, people living as God’s Images in the world, knowing that we are now located in Eden; the new Jerusalem; raised and seated in the heavenlies with Jesus; this story will produce fruit in our lives.

It’ll change the way we think about politics and participate in the polis; our city. Our desire to not be violent people of vengeance, but people of peace, will shape the way we vote; certainly, but it’ll also shape the causes we support with our time and money.

We’ll see ‘politics’ as going way beyond voting for a blue team or red team — Scomo, or Albo — who just offer more of the same; scratch a western liberal democracy and you’ll find violence and greed and individualism lurking below the surface; the coils of the Serpent — even if there are Christians in the corridors of power; and we should be participating in our city, our politics — this story will shape the alternative city we build within our city; our communities, our households we participate in and the way we use our tables. We aren’t nomads living in exile in the land of nod; or exiled in Babylon; we’re citizens of heaven, or the New Eden, called to live as those who are home, not those who’re wandering.