Why I Hate THE FALL

I hate THE FALL. No, it's not Autumn that I have issues with, the season just might be my favorite. I am talking about "The Fall," as, "In Adam's Fall we sinned all." All creation's estrangement from God as a result of the monumentally bad choice of our ancestors, Adam and Eve. As beautiful as this world often is, and as lovely as many of the people and creatures in it often are, the barbarity, letting, cruelty, senseless suffering, and that cause "all creation to groan" as it collectively longs to be freed from its current (See Romans 8.18-25), drives me to tears.

I do hate THE FALL, but I love hummingbirds! Such beautiful and delightful little blurs of color, and aerial acrobatics almost beyond belief. We now have five hummingbird feeders about our yard, and I am fairly certain that by next spring we'll have more. Our feeders attract more hummers than I can count, they just don't stay still long enough. And, no matter how bad a day, or week, or month, we might be having, the hummers never fail to lift our spirits when my wife and I sit out on our front porch and just watch, and listen, to them.

Actually, there was one time, earlier this week, when going out on the porch to check on the hummingbirds upset me to the point of nausea, rather than cheered me. Before I tell you what so disturbed me I need to pause for a Bible lesson. I do so even though teaching this lesson has gotten me in trouble before.

What I have gotten in hot water over is one of the repercussions of THE FALL. You see, there was a time when this whole earth was Vegan. God had filled the earth with all kinds of creatures of the seas, the skies, and the fields, and He had created Man and appointed him steward of this world. And for Man and all creatures God had supplied a veritable "Garden of Delights" filled with all kinds of good things to eat--from the trees and plants.
"Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on
the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You
shall have them as food. And to every beast of the earth, and to
every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the
earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every
green plant for food." [Genesis 1.29-30]

God had made a vegetarian creation. Fruits, nectar, nuts, and vegetables made up the diet of every living thing. No creature had any reason to fear any other creature, because no drop of needed ever be spilled according to God's plan for the world. Then, THE FALL. And, perhaps worst of all, Adam and Eve's choice to eat the one fruit that God had them to eat, forced God himself to be the first shedder, as He was compelled to slay a couple of His creatures in order to fashion garments of animal skins to cover the foolish man and woman. And the letting has only increased ever since.

Now, how I got in trouble with this lesson, and may again sharing it here, was when I told my students that Heaven is vegetarian. In a place where there will be no more death there won't be any hamburgers or chicken fingers, sorry. You see, Heaven, and the redeemed and renewed earth are where, "the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy..." (Isaiah 65.25) You might not see where the offense lies in this teaching, but where I now live there are some folks who like to hunt and fish, and who eat their meat with real savor, and the thought of a meatless heaven is disturbing to them. Me, I am looking forward to it. Even though I confess to being too weak to change my own diet, which, to my shame, continues to include meat, poultry, and fish.

What has all this to do with my getting so disturbed when I went out on the porch the other day? Well, as I walked over to the feeder I saw what looked at first like some kind of vine with a flower hanging from the feeder. This particular feeder was on a dual hook with a vining plant, so I first thought that the vine had somehow grasped the feeder. Then, as I got close enough for my eyes to clearly focus, I saw, to my revulsion, that the "vine" was a praying mantis, and the "flower" was a hummingbird it had killed and was in the process of eating. Well, I went kind of ballistic. I ran and got a stick, and cursing that mantis, I walloped it and whacked it, even though I knew it was only doing what it needed to to survive.

Up until the other day I had been taught, and always believed, that a praying mantis was a beneficial insect that helped control garden pests. Never had I imagined that they were really "preying" mantis's that would viciously attack one of God's most beautiful and little creatures. And I tried to anthropomorphize God, and convince myself that He would approve of my act of vengeance against the mantis. Surely God loves hummingbirds as much as I do, and would be similarly upset if He knew that they were the target of bloodthirsty mantis attacks!

And then I thought about THE FALL, and that in the prelapsarian world the diet of the praying mantis did not include hummingbirds, and wolves didn't eat lambs, and lions were grazers like oxen. And Man, well he didn't have any desire to hunt or fish. Or to order the six ounce Outback Sirloin Special. Even more, Man, back in that ever so fleeting Vegan world of peace, would never have raised his hand against one of God's creatures, much less his own brother. And I hated THE FALL. And I didn't think too much of myself, being an all too fallen creature, with more blood on my hands than I care to tell you about.

But even Jesus, during the time He spent here on this world as one of us, even Jesus ate flesh. For during His earthly sojourn the Son of God was a son of man as well, not fallen, certainly, but living among us, like one of us in every way but without sin. And, in the glorious will of God, it was Jesus who offered himself as the final blood sacrifice to Man's rebellion against God and His order for His creation. The last "flesh" to be consumed was to be Christ's body on the Cross, given for us all, and for hummingbirds, and even "preying" mantis's, so that all of creation should be redeemed and renewed.

I hate THE FALL because, among other things, hummingbirds have to die. But, more than I hate THE FALL, I love God because He was willing to sacrifice His own Son so that one day no more hummingbirds will die in my garden. No more children will starve to death in Darfur. No more women will die of breast cancer. No more men will die from heart attacks. There will be new heavens and a new earth. All the sorrows of what has gone before will be no longer remembered. We shall all be glad and rejoice forever in God's new creation.