Woman
Genesis 2:18-25
October 7, 2018 – Redeemer
What a wonderful coincidence. The first Sunday in October is Lutheran Women’s Missionary League Sunday and the appointed OT reading is the creation of woman.
Adam could hardly contain himself when God shook him awake and brought the woman to him. Adam’s response, his “at last” is really a Hebrew “wow.” When Adam had no helper fit for him it was not good, but now it is good, very good, at last, wow. This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.” Adam rejoiced that Eve was different than him, from him, like him, but not him. For him from God. Wow.
It is good, right, and salutary to say “wow” to the gift of women, and to the Biblical and biological truth that women are different than men. Thanks be to God. A man and a woman can create a child, but the woman alone carries that child in her womb. A woman alone can nurse and feed that child. Women are given a heart that nurtures and cares and is patient. Women are more empathetic and sympathetic. Look at our Lutheran Women’s Missionary League and our Redeemer Guild – giving their offerings of Mites to assist people all over the world – and often the people the world has forgotten. Gathering school supplies and coats and mittens and hats for those who lack the basic needs of life. Visiting the oft-forgotten residents at Good Shepherd and providing birthday packets for abused and abandoned women and children at Anna Marie’s shelter, supporting the pregnancy resource center and birth line with in-gatherings. Wow.
Adam says “wow” but the men in today’s Gospel reading ask, “How can I get rid of my wife?” Do you know the most unsafe place for women in Saint Cloud? In their own homes, at the hands of their husbands or boyfriends. By the way – when your daughter or granddaughter is tempted to live her boyfriend remind her that boyfriends are far more dangerous than husbands. Just ask the police. Boyfriends are not there to be faithful – they are there to fornicate. A man who marries you has promised to be faithful, to raise the children that the one flesh union creates. Even though all men are sinful – a husband is always going to be better for you and your children than a boyfriend. God says so and all the marriage statistics agree.
So what happened between the “wow” of Adam and men and women tearing asunder what God put together? What happened between the wow and the women who suffer beatings, abuse, and neglect at the hands of men? We know what happened. Adam and Eve stopped looking at each other. They stopped listening to God’s Word. They listened to the Devil’s lies and then they started looking at themselves. I don’t really like to think about my great, great, great grandparents standing naked in a garden, but Moses tells us about Grandpa Adam and Grandma Eve standing there naked for a reason. They had no shame. They had no sin, which means they didn’t look at themselves first. They were the glory of God’s creation, the recipients of His love. They knew God perfectly and so they loved each other perfectly. Eve had her eyes on Adam and Adam only had eyes for Eve.
You remember what happened when they sinned. Immediately Adam and Eve saw they were naked. They had turned their ears from God’s Word and then they turned their eyes away from each other. The ideal of Holy Marriage is that a man will sacrifice his life for his bride and a woman will subordinate her will to her husband. Why? Because that’s God’s will, that’s His good order. But now men want sex without commitment and certainly without the sacrifice that children call for. Many men simply want to play, play with women, play with their toys, but not grow up to be a sacrificing man – a real man who lives and dies for his wife and children. And women want many things other than children or a husband. Our society does not look upon marriage or children as a gift and blessing, but as a curse, a burden. Marriage and family will get in the way of having a meaningful life.
How is the wow to women restored among us? How is the “thanks be to God” for husbands and wives and children to return? Well, the creation of woman points us ahead to the very gift we need to restore women to their rightful place, to the top, the completion of creation, and the fulfillment of God’s will to be fruitful and multiply.
In preparation for my sermon I read some very old sermons and comments on Genesis – dating back to the second, third, and fourth centuries AD. I was surprised by how many of those early preachers saw Jesus very clearly in this text.
Let me draw the outlines and see if you can fill in the picture of Christ. God caused Adam to go into a deep sleep and then opened up his side. He took out a rib from Adam and built the woman (that is the Hebrew word, not made, not created, but He built the woman) for Adam. Now can you think of any time when Jesus of Nazareth “slept” and His side was opened up? When Jesus died for the sins of Adam and Eve, and every one of their children, the Roman soldier pierced Jesus’ side. From His lungs and heart came water and blood – Saint John saw it. By that water and blood – Christ’s bride is built. By that water and blood all your sins, your man sins and woman sins, your son and father sins, your daughter and mother sins, they’re all forgiven. By the waters of baptism and the blood of the Lord’s Supper we are created and built up as the bride of Christ. There is no shame anymore – our sins are forgiven. Christ has covered us with His righteousness. You don’t need to live for yourself anymore – Jesus died for your sins and now because He lives you also will live forever.
This morning, as we rejoice in the creation of woman and in being the bride of Christ, it is important to recapture the Biblical truth about women. Woman is God’s very good creation. There would be no salvation with women. God promised that a woman would bear a son who would crush the serpent’s head. Although Rome has elevated Mary far beyond anything the Bible says, God did choose a woman to bear our Savior. Woman is uniquely created to be a wife and a mother, a helper fit for man. This is all very good.
When people badmouth Christianity for its treatment of women they are simply uninformed or lying. A study of the Old and New Testament will reveal that in comparison to every other religion and culture Christianity far exceeds all others in the honor given to women. Many of the Old Testament ceremonial laws which we consider weird and gross guarded women and provided especially for widows. Since Christ rose from the dead it has been Christianity alone that has brought women dignity and worth in the Western world. Where can women vote, drive, work, and have freedom equal to men? Where did cultural practices that regard women as unworthy of life apart from a man come to an end? Only in those countries where Christianity was the prevailing religion, where creation by God was believed, where freedom was prized, where Jesus’ salvation for both men and women was taught and preached. It makes the major news stations when some Arab country finally allows women to drive. Shouldn’t our press be daily calling for those countries to grant the same freedoms women have in the United States?
God’s Word leads us to rejoice in the gift of women. Women were created in the image of God, equal to man in human worth. The creation of woman foreshadows the saving work of Jesus, Whose side was opened in the sleep of death to build His bride, the church. Encourage your daughters away from boyfriends and toward husbands who will be good fathers. Encourage your sons to marry and thus treat women with the respect and faithfulness they deserve. Acknowledge and give thanks for the gift of woman, for the obvious differences, for God’s completing of creation in such a wonderful way, for work of the LWML, and finally for saving work of God for both women and men, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
October 6, 2018 anno Domini