Garden Party

I grew up on those black and white family sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver , Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet Show. My oldest sister loved Ricky Nelson and so she was elated when she met his wife and twin boys while working at a five and dime in Burbank in the early seventies. Ricky had become cool again by that time with the biggest hit of his career, “Garden Party.” The song was auto-biographical about a rock’n roll reunion concert at Madison Square Garden in 1971. If you remember the lyrics reflect his rejection that night because he didn’t sing or look like he did in the fifties and consequently was met with a wave of boos. I woke up recently singing this song and it made me think of another garden party that’s been on my mind.

It’s the original garden party where an uninvited guest spoiled all the future parties of life. This talking snake with a “not” in his tale convinced Eve to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil by telling her if she ate the forbidden fruit, “you will not surely die (Genesis 3:4).” Deceived, complicit and dripping with consequences Eve and her acquiescing partner Adam opened death’s door. When God shows up to the party in the cool of the day, sin is in its usual place –hiding. But you can’t hide from God and you can’t hide from the destruction that sin always leaves in its path. This is the only time in Scripture that I have ever felt sorry for the devil (and of course I’m kidding) but Adam blames God for the defective woman he gave him and Eve blames the devil snake and the helpless snake hasn’t got anybody left to blame. You see the loss of innocence is also about the birth of the blame game. Sinners from this point forward will tend to blame others for their selfish indulgences. But as promised the fruit bowl at this garden party resulted in God’s proclamation, “from dust you are and from dust you will return (Genesis 3:19).” Or as Paul reflects, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12).”

This garden story I believe has one more veiled insight. Before God put Adam and Eve out of the garden he made them suitable clothes (fig leaves have a shelf life). So, he clothed them in skins (leather is the original fashion statement). But what must be assumed and is vital to our understanding of sin and grace is that such required the loss of innocent life… the shedding of blood in behalf of mankind. This awful mixture of grace filled love and the consequences of sin should never be far from our lips. How great is the price for our sins! May we never forget what we lost at the Garden Party… and lament our sinfulness as we embrace the grace that covers us! -DAN