Genesis 4.25-26

25 Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”  26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.  At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.

For a short recap of the events before this, Adam and Eve have been exiled from the garden after eating from the tree of which they were told not to eat.  Adam and Eve had two sons: Cain and Abel.  Cain killed Abel and then was exiled from the rest of the people.  There is a listing of the family line of Cain up to his descendant Lamech.  Lamech has two wives and brags to them about having killed more people than Cain has killed.

Now we step back and see the line of Adam and Eve again with Seth.  In contrast to the line that comes from Cain where we see the beginnings of polygamy, where we see violence and murder, the line of Seth begins with the statement: At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD.

Long before Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and even further back before Moses leading the people, we see the beginnings of faith as people call on the name of the LORD.  The reverse will take place in the days of Noah about to come when we see in Genesis 6.5, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”  But here, at the beginning, we see the connection to the God of creation.  The connection to the promises of restoration that were made in Genesis 3. 

We can look at the world today and see that there are those who wish to use life to only gain for themselves.  Living similar to Genesis 6 and the people of Noah’s day.  We can also see that there are many others who wish to live in the Genesis 4 place of calling on the LORD.  Some who come with us and have begun to understand the ways of following in the grace of Jesus.  Others who are searching, yet need to find Jesus with us yet.  And most of us somewhere along that line of understanding a bit better each day.

Today we look to understand where we have come from and where we are heading.  And we call on the name of the LORD, through the grace of Jesus, seeing that his coming once showed the promises of life were begun, the beginnings of birth pains we see in Mark 13.  We see that it is looking forward to the certain return that completes his work of grace and transformation for us.  We, and all creation, restored to the presence of God.  The place from which we were once exiled and now are beginning to see as the reality of life for us, both now and forever.

 

Song – Soon and Very Soon

 

Prayer

O loving, sovereign God, whose reign extends round our globe and beyond, we rejoice in your far-flung greatness; we give thanks for your unending goodness.  In all the corners of the earth, you are faithfully building your church: in crowded Indian villages, in sunny Caribbean islands, in remote Chinese hamlets, in busy South African townships, in racially diverse North American cities.  We give thanks for the vast embrace of your love, for the multicolored church you are creating.  Grant, O God, that we may truly be one church with one baptism, one hope, in one Lord Jesus Christ, to the end of the age, to the praise of God’s glory.  Amen.

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