"Clearing Your Record"

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   Ah, the asterisk. It’s one of many symbols that grace our computer keyboards that until recently were virtually ignored. I mean, prior to 1995 or so, how often had you seen an “at” symbol or a “backslash” or a “tild” used? Now the asterisk has become synonymous among the computer savvy as the symbol for “wildcard.” A kind of place holder that can mean anything you want it to, like the joker in a deck of cards. And yet, like these symbols, the asterisk had a meaning before the computer age. Possibly the most common was to mark a footnote, particularly in charts, graphs, or short articles.

   In this context, asterisk has taken on yet another meaning in the world of sports; a darker, more ominous meaning. “Chicago White Sox: 1919 American League Champions*”. “Pete Rose: Most Career Hits in the MLB*”. And, just maybe, we will soon see, “New England Patriots: Perfect Regular Season Record*”. Many of you have likely heard about the scandal that rocked the Patriots organization. For those who haven’t, I won’t go into the gory details. Sufficed to say, Bill Belichick, the head coach of the Patriots, was caught cheating. He was caught directly sending an employee to violate the league’s rules in order to gain a competitive advantage. And, despite his adamant denials of wrong doing, he was severely punished for it. Belichick was personally fined half a million dollars for the offense, and many believe that if he were caught cheating again, he could find himself suspended for at least a year, if not for life.

   But Belichick wasn’t the only Patriots employee who suffered. The entire team was punished as well. The organization was fined a quarter million dollars. And, most significantly, they had their 1^st draft pick of 2008 taken away, which means that while the rest of the league can add a supremely talented college player to their rosters, the Patriots will have to make do with the lesser players available later in the draft. Why did the league do this? Why punish an entire team for the wrong doing of only its coach? Why punish everyone for the crimes of only one man?

   I think that’s a question that plagues many Christians as they read the account of the fall in Genesis 3, and of St Paul’s discussion of it in Romans 5. For while it makes sense to us that Adam had to be punished for his disobedience, it baffles us that we too should be punished for the crimes of a man who lived thousands of years ago. Perhaps it would be helpful to look at that crime, however. I think most of us understand that the Fall centered on the disobedience of man. God said one thing. Adam and Eve did something else. Pretty straightforward. And yet, there’s a tangled web of sin throughout the story. Sin that pervades not simply the act, but the thoughts and motives of our parents as well.

   Let’s look first at what God commanded to Adam regarding that fateful tree: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” The command isn’t overly complicated. It shouldn’t have been easily confused. And yet, we end up with this dialogue between Eve and Satan in chapter 3: “[The serpent] said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

   There are two things going on here. First, we have Satan’s distortion of God’s Word, something that he’s supremely talented at doing. The Wednesday morning Bible study I teach has been discussing such groups as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-day Saints. And I think any person who’s looked at those groups thoroughly can tell you that Satan has had a field day distorting God’s Word amongst these church’s that call themselves “Christian.” Even such religions as Islam have attempted to twist and contort the Gospel of Jesus Christ into wholly unchristian frameworks, with pretty disturbing results. So this should not surprise us. This is how Satan has operated from day one, and how he still operates today.

   And yet, the devil isn’t the only one who gets God’s Word wrong in this account. Eve herself misses the mark too. “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” Where did that come from? I don’t recall God ever forbidding them from touching it. In fact, God had expressly given them the care over every plant in the garden, which would most likely involve quite a bit of touching. All of a sudden where Satan has subtracted from God’s Word, Eve has added to it. And as a result, the tree has ceased to be a source of simple love, devotion, and piety to God, a gift where they can show obedience by not eating from it. Instead, it is now something they avoid even touching, something they fear to even approach. A barrier has been erected between God and his good gifts. And before the first sin was ever committed, the groundwork was laid in their failure to listen to God’s Word.

   And once God’s Word was cast aside, Satan’s task was easy. He could tell them anything and they would have believed it. Even living in the presence of God almighty, they had willingly cast aside his law in favor of their own. As St Paul said to the Romans, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator.” And this is a crime that cannot go unnoticed by God. It cannot go unpunished. And so, he separated himself from them. He cast them out of his presence. He ripped them away from the tree of life. He took his Word from their hearts and let them toil in pain.

   For, you see, they had chosen their god. They had chosen how they were going to win the game. They had decided whose rulebook they were following. And God put… well… an asterisk on their life. “Adam and Eve*.” “Adam and Eve: Sinners.” God had left them to their own devices, and while he might give them new laws and new prophecies, his Word was gone from their hearts. And so they bore sons named Cain and Abel, each without God’s Word. Each with an asterisk upon their lives as well. Each with a will bent on twisting every good gift that God might try to give him into something Godless and corrupt.

   This is how we are born. This is how we are conceived. Creatures who don’t know their creator. Creatures who wander aimlessly in this life, making a mess of everything we touch. We are born with the curse of an asterisk upon us. A life that tries to cheat God at every turn, because we do not know who God really is.

   But God did not abandon us to our punishment, to death. God returned his Word to mankind. Not in the form of new commandments, new writings, or new prophets. But in his Word made flesh. His very Son. As the apostle John says, the grace and truth of God’s image revealed to mankind. A second Adam who went into the desert and stood toe to toe with every single one of Satan’s distortions of God’s Word and replied with complete confidence, “It is written!” A man who restored the knowledge of God to all of mankind, so that we can claim by faith that tree of life once again.

   You know, pastor has been doing this series on the benefits of reading the Bible. And I agree with everything he’s said. But for me, the most wonderful part of reading the Bible is looking into the face of Jesus. For that’s what the Bible is. Jesus is the embodied Word of God. The Bible is the written Word of God. They are the Word, one and the same. And I’m not just talking about the Gospels here. The faithfulness of the patriarchs. The strength of the judges. The wisdom of Solomon. The love of the prophets. The guidance of the epistles. All of it is the fullness of Jesus Christ. The fullness of God’s will for mankind, and God’s grace for a lost people.

   In the world of sports, justice and fairness reign supreme. Referees, umpires, judges all seek to make the right call. Technology such as instant replay even tries to eliminate human error. In fact, the sporting world may be the closest analogy this world has to divine righteousness. Which is why I don’t expect that cheaters will ever receive an ounce of mercy from either their leagues or their fans. But we can all be thankful that God is more forgiving than we are as fans, more merciful than any sporting league, and that every asterisk that has ever marred our record has been wiped clean from the book of life. Amen.