The Bystander & The Cross
Genesis 3: 6
6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
If you’ve spent time in Christian circles, you’ve heard the joke, “If it weren’t for Eve, then _____ thing wouldn’t be the way it is, or it’s all Eve’s fault.” Ultimately it is a joke, but the reality is that when God came calling, He did not call out to Eve, asking her, “what have you done?” Instead, God calls out to the man. I want to consider a few ideas on this subject. To be clear, I believe men and women are equally called to take responsibility for their life. Husbands and Wives are equally called to responsibility, but I think God calls on the man first for a few reasons, and it is not because the man is superior or better, so with that said, let’s dig into it.
Genesis 3: 9
9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
Genesis 2: 15-17
15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
God was not unaware of where they were, and God was not unaware of who had eaten first from the tree, but what it was instead is God was calling the man out as he was responsible for his wife. He was responsible for leading her and washing her in the word of God, Ephesians 5: 26. It also amuses me that they had ONE restriction and still couldn’t help themselves but rebel when tempted by the devil. I confess I don’t think I’d have done any better. When God gave this commandment and gave them this one rule Eve wasn’t yet a part of the picture. It was only Adam and God, or that’s how I understand it. So Eve likely did not hear first hand of this rule from God, but we do see that Eve was aware of the restriction.
Genesis 3: 2-3
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”
So what we do see is if Eve was aware of the commandment. We do not know if this information was given to her by God Himself or if it was, in fact, Adam who told her. We are not given clarification on who told her. Regardless of who told her, it doesn’t seem to matter to God. God calls out to the man first, and He calls him to give an account for what has happened. Here is where I want to camp and digest some thoughts and questions. My first question is this, What was the sin of Adam in this situation?
What sticks out is that Adam was with Eve when she chose to take and eat of the tree. Adam likely heard the conversation between Eve and the serpent, but he did nothing. Adam didn’t step in and try to stop her. According to the Bible, he was there with Eve and took the tree when she offered it to him. When I read this, it just sticks out to me that he doesn’t seem to do anything but goes along with it. He didn’t lead and was a passive observer of the interaction between Eve and the serpent.
As I read through this, I couldn’t help but find myself considering my own life and many of the things in my own life where I have chosen not to engage in some form of sin, but at the same time, I also did nothing, said nothing and just allowed things to play out. Maybe because I was afraid of the consequences of stepping out and saying something, or I was afraid of ridicule, I was scared I’d become an outcast.
Considering this passage, I find myself very much believing there can be sin in doing nothing, of passivity. We all deal with this sin, and I believe we will have to give an account for all the wrong things we’ve done, but I also think we will have to account for the times when we have remained silent and didn’t help when we could or should have, and I believe there is a particular burden on men in this. God called men to lead their wives, their families, and their communities. As men, there is a responsibility that God gave to us, which is largely being abdicated in today’s culture. Today studies show that more than 1 in 4 children are raised without a father in their home. That is a sad and terrible statistic, but one that also explains much of the hurting in our world. There’s a ton I want to write on the subject of fathers and fatherhood, but I will save that for another day.
Today we see the world falling apart, and we choose to instead turn on a game or drink another beer; we are choosing to step out instead of stepping up and taking ownership. What if, instead of blaming others, we owned the situation and asked for forgiveness instead? That’s stepping up and not out. Adam told God, “Eve made me do it,” or basically, “It’s her fault”. At that moment, God didn’t say, “Oh, I’m sorry, Adam, I didn’t realize.” God was well aware of the situation, and God held Adam responsible first for what had happened. (Side note: Adam blames not only Eve but also God when he says, “This woman you gave me” Adam did then precisely what we do today. We blame others, and we blame God for our problems and our shortcomings. So I’m going to go off on a bit of a rabbit trail here, but bear with me; I think this will all fit together by the end.
We blame, accuse, and point to others because it’s the easiest thing to do. We don’t want to look in the mirror and admit that our trouble is most often our fault; we want to play the victim card. This is as common an issue in our culture today as it was with Adam and Eve. Everyone wants to be a victim, and everyone wants to blame someone else for the problems in their own life. We don’t want to admit that it might be our fault, and why would we? It’s so much easier to blame someone else or just complain because the world is unfair and so we aren’t to blame, or maybe it’s because we are oppressed that this “bad” thing has happened to us. It’s much easier to do that than to look at the hand we have been dealt and say.
“This is the hand I’ve got; what can I do with it?”
“This is my fault; how can I fix it?”
The reality is this, as long as you are a victim, you will be powerless; as long as you claim it’s not your fault, you can never fix it. There are plenty of things in our life that may well not be our fault, and there are plenty of things in our life that we can’t control, and we can be mad; we can blame the world, people, or even God. We can blame God for our broken family, lack of financial stability, or the failure of a relationship. We can always find a way to pass the buck onto someone or something else rather than look in the mirror, But as long as we do that, we will never be able to escape it, and we will never be able to grow. It is only by looking in the mirror and saying, “Yes, this sucks, now what can I do to make it better, what can I take responsibility for this, even if it’s not my cross to bear? Then, and only then, when you refuse to be a victim, only when we actively choose to take up the cross and carry it will we be able to do anything of meaning, anything of worth or value.
It always comes back to Jesus! When He came to earth, He came to earth to take up our cross, He came to take on the sins that we had committed, and He chose to take responsibility for them, not because He had to but because He chose to. Jesus freely chose to take responsibility for sins He didn’t commit for our sake. Today we are given that same choice: we can blame others, we can rail against an unfair and broken world, or we can step up and take up the cross. Only there bearing our cross will we find any meaning to life; only there will we be able to see any hope for a better tomorrow.
Matthew 16: 24
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
This is a call to action, we can not follow Jesus and not take up our cross, and we can’t be imitators of Christ if we don’t take up the cross.
Consider reading this command from Jesus like this.
“And Jesus said to them If any man would follow me let him, put away his desires, put away his comforts, and take up responsibility, take up hardships, and follow me.
That is not a message we hear in our culture today, and it is not a message we want to hear, but it is the message that gives meaning to life, and it is the message that Jesus ultimately shared by the testimony of His own life and sacrifice. So I close with these questions.
Where can you take responsibility?
How can you take up your cross today?
Where are you passing the buck rather than taking hold of it?
If you liked and or enjoyed what you read here, please consider passing it along and sharing it with someone! Credit and shoutout to Tony for his feedback on this post! I appreciate your input on this subject!
