HE LAST PLACE ON EARTH [T, 12-2-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH [T, 12-2-25]

It’s not surprising that God threw Adam and Eve out of The Garden of Eden. After all, God had created A&E because God was lonely, and then A&E went and acted like they had created themselves and had no need of God. [Genesis 1:26-28]

When A&E were thrown out of Eden, they were homeless. No, not just unhoused. “Unhoused” means you don’t have a house. Homeless means you don’t have a home.

They tried renting. They found a new place to dwell. Turned out to be down at the end of Lonely Street. Definitely no Garden.

They had no choice but to keep looking for some homeless shelter that would take them in. Sure, they thought about sneaking back into Eden while God wasn’t looking, but no, they could not get back in. There was a flaming sword at the eastern gate. They’d get chopped up if they tried to go back. They were the first to day, “You can’t go home again.”

They wandered for eons, east of Eden, throughout the world, from Africa to Europe and Asia and the Americas, “from earth’s wide bounds to ocean’s farthest coasts,” looking for another Eden.

When they had tried every decent place on earth, they were finally so weary, so footworn, they were willing to take anything, even the last place on earth. That turned out to be a woebegone town called Bethlehem. Our of options, A&E had found a new home.

In Advent, preachers and theologians talk about readiness. Not just using Advent to get ready for Christmas, which is the appearance of God in the world in human form, Emmanuel. We say that Christ did not appear until the time was right, when all was in readiness.

In worship, we reenact the history of the relationship between God and the creation, from the big bang to resurrection. First we acknowledge that “…it is God who has created us and not we ourselves.” [Psalm 100:3] Then we confess that we act, though, like A&E, like we really did create ourselves, that we have no need of God. [That’s called sinning.] Then we acknowledge that God has made a new creation in Jesus Christ, and, finally, we commit ourselves to live as part of that new creation.

In Advent worship, we are essentially reenacting the history of the world from the Garden of Eden up to the birth in Bethlehem, from the time of “the fall” up to the new creation.

What does it mean to say that the time was right, that finally the world was ready for Christ?

Karl Jung says that there is a “collective unconscious,” an unconscious consciousness that all humans share. We are all Adam and Eve. In Bethlehem, A&E finally learned that they could not go back to Eden, but that they could go back to God, that the lonely God was still hoping for companionship, still looking for love, so much so that God was waiting for A&E, in that stable in Bethlehem.

That happens when all is in readiness, not when God is ready, but when we are ready. That’s often when we’ve tried everything but God first. That’s okay with God. God is always ready.

John Robert McFarland

To get a picture to accompany this column, I Googled “Last place on earth.” Google says it’s Duluth, Minnesota!