From the Foundation of the World (Part 2)

I said in the last blog that this “From the foundation of the world” thing is making me think.

Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus, “The lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world”.

I’ve thought about that phrase all week. And I’ve filled one of my husband’s legal pads with research notes about what other people have thought.

(My husband has, for years. tried to drag me into the world of technology with gifts of palm pilot and iPad type things. But nothing satisfies like manually marking an item off my list of things to do with a ballpoint pen. And, it seems to me, that I best contemplate Bible stuff with a pad of paper in my hand, a no. 2 pencil in my mouth and a highlighter pen hanging somewhere in my unkempt morning hair.)

The thing is . . . Why couldn’t God just enjoy his relationship with Adam and Eve?

Why would He tell them “Don’t eat!” when He absolutely knew that they would.

And why would He set in motion, at the foundation of the world, a chain of events that would lead to the cross?

(Let me pull the pencil from my mouth and tell you what I’m thinking.)

My grandmother was a formidable personality. In her house, her husband’s dog was never allowed in the living area. Her grandchildren were never allowed to use the wrong verb tense. And, her 90 year-old mother was given a glass or two of blackberry wine when she began to cause a commotion.

My mother was a free spirit. I have been told that as a teen she was lively and daring and pushed all my grandmother’s buttons just to see which flavor of frustration would pop out. Then she would shake it up and watch it spew. As a kid, I never knew the two of them to truly enjoy each other.

It turned out that life was hard for my mother. My grandmother was always close by to help if she could. And as they aged, they became closer.

After my grandfather died, my mother began visiting my grandmother often to keep her company. She told me they were probably the best times she and her mother had spent together.

By that time, my grandmother had had a series of small strokes and had lost the ability to speak. My mother was life-tired and soul-spent and had few words to say anyway. So, they spent most evenings in silence with my mother laying her head in my grandmother’s lap.

As I’m chewing on my pencil, I’m wondering if that picture holds some insight into why the plan for Jesus’ death was in place before Adam disobeyed.

Maybe the cross wasn’t just a fix for Adam’s sin. Maybe a relationship with a faultless man was never God’s “A” plan. Maybe He always wanted the relationship he could have with man after he had tried and failed at life on his own. Maybe, from the foundation of the world, God has preferred redeemed man to innocent man.

I really think that I might think God most wants us after life has chewed us up and spit us out and we are too tired to talk about ourselves . . . and all we can do is shut our mouths and lay our heads in his lap.