December 1: Before the Fall: Living in a Sacred Sanctuary
♫ Music:
Week One Introduction
December 1–7
Title: The Garden: Dwelling Place of God
God, the great Creator, begins his story by planting a garden and putting the man whom he had fashioned out of earth in it, to tend it. The garden of Eden was a holy sanctuary where God regularly communed with Adam and Eve. Scholars suggest that the descriptions of Solomon’s garden in the Song of Songs hearken back to the garden of Eden: a fruitful, intimate, inviting place where vulnerability, goodness, and rest produced an atmosphere of peaceful bliss. Throughout Scripture, the garden is pictured as the dwelling place of God. Yet the garden of Eden was not completely secure. Somehow the serpent entered, bringing death into this idyllic place.
When Adam and Eve sinned and were forced out of the heaven on earth made especially for them, God cursed the ground. Eventually their descendants ended up in the wilderness, the antithesis of the garden. Yet God was faithful to his chosen people, Israel, ordaining the construction of the tabernacle—a new, moveable garden of Eden and dwelling place for God. Later, King Solomon built a more permanent sacred space when he erected the temple. It became in a certain sense a way back to Paradise, again replete with numerous motifs from nature. In John 1:14, the gospel writer declares that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
The literal translation reads, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” Christ’s incarnation brought new hope to the world: “We will live again in freedom, in the Garden of the Lord” (Les Misérables, the musical). Rev. Andrew Gass writes, “The ultimate purpose of man is to dwell with God in His creation, and it is through Immanuel (God with us) that we can achieve this purpose. The Tabernacle served as a portable Eden for Israel through their journeys, the Temple served as a sign of God’s covenant promise of a new Eden land, and Jesus Christ serves us today as our guide and example of God dwelling with us.”
Day 1 - Sunday, December 01
Title: Before the Fall: Living in a Sacred Sanctuary
Scripture: Genesis 2:15–17, 21–25; 3:20 (NKJV)
Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.”…And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed...And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Poetry:
“Adam and Eve”
by Marjorie Pickthall
When the first dark had fallen around them
And the leaves were weary of praise,
In the clear silence Beauty found them
And shewed them all her ways.
In the high noon of the heavenly garden
Where the angels sunned with the birds,
Beauty, before their hearts could harden,
Had taught them heavenly words.
When they fled in the burning weather
And nothing dawned but a dream,
Beauty fasted their hands together
And cooled them at her stream.
And when day wearied and night grew stronger,
And they slept as the beautiful must,
Then she bided a little longer,
And blossomed from their dust.
GOD’S GARDEN
Easing north on Highway 141 through Wausaukee, Wisconsin (pop. 594), I never fail to notice Eden Restored. Unlike the 16th-century embroidered textile pictured above, this single-story shop clad in tan vinyl siding hardly signals Paradise. Its health market offers bulk tea, natural oils and supplements; and its lifestyle center a hyperbaric chamber, near infrared light panel, and sauna. Despite these offerings, in summer months, it’s the Ice Cream Station on the west side of the highway that boasts long lines and crowded outdoor tables.
It may seem odd to start an Advent meditation this way. With an opening scene headed north one could rather imagine a cold winter’s night, the first dusting of snow, and a stall in some empty barn (there are plenty) where the Christ Child might be born. But we begin our Advent watch with the proprietor of Eden Restored. For do we not share her sense that, in some primeval age, there was a Paradise? Do we not also long for Eden restored?
I know that ache each spring with the early burst of crocuses in our lawn. I sense it mid-summer when the fireflies blink about our backyard. That longing returns in autumn as spirited sparrows cavort in our privet hedge. Even in bleak mid-winter, notions of Paradise hold fast. For me, the most poignant anthem of this longing resides in the lyrics Joni Mitchell’s lyrics: “We are stardust, we are golden. We are billion-year-old carbon, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
The opening chapters of Genesis remind us that, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till and keep it.” But beguiled by the cunning serpent, the Garden’s first gardeners elected to eat of the fruit forbidden them. God could not abide their rebellion and Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden. To prevent their return, winged Cherubim brandishing a flaming sword keep watch at its gate.
Revisiting this familiar story yields several surprises. Consider, for instance, the possibility that only four beings have ever known the Garden’s verdance and communion firsthand: God, its maker; Adam and Eve, its residents; and the interloping serpent. To all others and across all time it remains a secret garden.
And consider this: although Adam and Eve were sent away from the Garden, neither Testament mentions God’s departure. An omnipresent God is not bound to any particular place, of course, no less one of his own making. But Genesis confirms that Adam and Eve, “heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.” Again and again, Scripture reports that God visits his created order, that he tabernacled with his people in Eden, Sinai, and Bethlehem. Do we long for Eden because its Divine Creator is eternally present there?
There is more. The biblical story begins in God’s Garden and concludes in God’s City; the New Jerusalem. John’s revelation describes that city as a perfect cube measuring 12,000 stadia on every side. Unlike Babel, the divine metropolis need not reach toward heaven since the very glory of God is already contained within. God’s throne rests at the center of God’s City and a river flows from it. Trees of Life line the banks of that river and the leaves they bear are for the healing of the nations. Could it be that God erected his City to feature his Garden?
Finally: if the reality of God’s Garden transcends all time and space and if he remains present there, perhaps God’s Gardener—the one whom Mary Magdalene met as the first to witness the resurrected Christ—can lead us back?
This Advent, watch for him, the Son of Man who has and will come, the one who will greet us at the Garden’s gate, the only one who can lead us in.
Cameron J. Anderson
Artist and Writer
Distinguished Fellow, Art and Literature
The Lumen Center
SL Brown Foundation
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork #1:
Paradise with the Creation of Eve
Jan Brueghel the Younger
c.1636–1640
37 x 49 cm.
Staedel Museum
Frankfurt, Germany
Public domain
In this painting, Baroque artist Jan Brueghel the Younger illustrates how animals and humans lived in balance and harmony in the Garden of Eden before the forbidden fruit was eaten. Brueghel chooses to paint God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib amidst a lush paradise full of exotic animals and beautiful flowers.
About the Artist #1:
Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601–1678) was a Flemish baroque painter. He was the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and grandson of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, both prominent painters who contributed respectively to the development of Renaissance and baroque painting in the Habsburg Netherlands. Taking over his father's workshop at an early age, he largely painted the same subjects as his father in a style which was similar to that of his father. He gradually was able to break away from his father's style by developing a broader, more painterly, and less structured manner of painting. He regularly collaborated with leading Flemish painters of his time. About three hundred forty paintings have been attributed to him. His repertoire included history paintings, allegorical and mythological scenes, landscapes and seascapes, hunting scenes, village scenes, battle scenes, and scenes of hellfire and the underworld.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.getty.edu/art/coll...
About the Artwork #2:
The Garden of Eden
Unknown British craftsman
Last quarter sixteenth century
Velvet worked with silk and metal thread; long-and-short, split, stem, satin, chain, knots, and couching stitches; applied canvas worked with silk thread in tent stitch
22.5 x 80 in.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, New York
This panel was one of a set of three valances probably used to decorate the tester of a bed. Small elements—fruits, flowers, and leaves—were worked in tent stitch on canvas and then applied to the dark velvet foundation on which was worked the river in the garden of Eden, the figures of Adam and Eve, and God the Father, in polychrome silk and metal threads. The garden is monumental, almost overwhelming the figures. The three trees that anchor the composition would have brought to mind the biblical description of trees in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The scene of Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden on the far right may also derive from a reading of contemporary vernacular English Bibles, rather than any pictorial convention. Adam and Eve wear garments that suggest articles of late Elizabethan dress and the Geneva Bible of 1560 referred to their first clothes as "breeches." In this and other embroidered renderings of the story of the expulsion from Eden, Adam and Eve are treated more gently by God and the expelling angel than they are in contemporary print sources.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/...
About the Music:
“By Thee with Bliss” (Adam & Eve Duet) from Franz Joseph Haydn’s Oratorio The Creation
Lyrics:
Eve (Soprano), Adam (Baritone), Chorus
By thee with bliss, O bounteous Lord,
are earth and heaven stored.
This world, so great, so wonderful,
thy mighty hand has framed.
Chorus:
O blessed be his holy might;
his praise we sing eternally.
Adam:
Thou star of morning,
O how fair thy tidings of the day;
What radiance rare, O sun, is thine,
thou eye and soul of all!
Chorus:
Proclaim, in your extended course,
your maker’s power and glory bright!
Eve:
And thou, the tender queen of night,
and all ye starry host,
proclaim in every land
his praise in heaven’s harmonies!
Adam:
Ye mighty elements,
by his power your endless changes make;
ye misty vapors,
which the wind doth spin and roll through air,
Eve, Adam, Chorus:
O sing the praise of God the Lord.
Great is his name, and great his might.
Eve:
Soft flowing fountains,
tune his praise, and trees adoring bow.
Ye fragrant plants, ye flowers fair,
with sweetness fill the air!
Adam:
Ye that on highest mountains climb,
and ye that lowly creep,
ye whose flight doth cleave the skies,
and ye that swim the deep,
Eve, Adam and Chorus:
Ye, ye creatures of our God and King,
praise, praise him, all ye breathing life!
Eve and Adam:
Ye shadowed woods, ye hills and vales,
your thanks with ours unite
and echo loud from morn to eve
our joyful hymn of praise
Chorus:
Hail, mighty God, Creator, hail!
The world springs forth at thy command.
Adoring earth and heaven stand.
We praise thy name for evermore.
About the Composer:
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) was an Austrian composer of the classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music, and his contributions to the musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet." Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original.” Yet his music circulated widely, and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, and the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.
https://www.kennedy-center.org...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
About the Performers:
Southwell Festival Voices and Southwell Festival Sinfonia conducted by Marcus Farnsworth with Sophie Bevan (soprano), Andrew Staples (tenor), and Ashley Riches (bass)
Southwell Music Festival takes place in the small cathedral town of Southwell in Nottinghamshire, England. This annual classical music festival on the August Bank Holiday presents some of the best young classical musicians. The founder and artistic director is baritone Marcus Farnsworth.
Marcus Farnsworth was awarded first prize in the 2009 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, and the Song Prize at the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier Competition. He completed his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in 2011, and is now forging a successful career in opera, concert, and recital.
https://www.southwellmusicfest...
Sophie Anna Magdalena Bevan (b. 1983) is a British soprano appearing in concerts, recitals, and opera. Her concert repertoire ranges from Handel to James MacMillan, and she has worked with conductors that include Sir Antonio Pappano, Edward Gardner, Sir Neville Marriner, Ryan Wigglesworth, and Sir Charles Mackerras. Already highly accomplished on the operatic stage, Sophie is also the recipient of the 2010 Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent; the Times Breakthrough Award at the 2012 South Bank Sky Arts Award and the Young Singer award at the 2013 inaugural International Opera Awards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Andrew Staples (b. 1979) is an English operatic tenor. Staples started as a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral and was accepted at Eton College under a musical scholarship. With the Royal Opera, Staples has sung Tamino in Die Zauberflote, Narraboth in Salome, and Artabenes in Arne's Artaxerxes. He has also sung at opera houses in Salzburg, Hamburg, Brussels, and Prague.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.digitalconcerthall...
Ashley Riches is a British operatic baritone. Riches studied at Winchester College and King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in English and sang in the King's College Choir. He continued his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Riches' lead roles with major opera companies have included Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart at English National Opera; the title role in Owen Wingrave by Britten for Opéra National de Lorraine; and Creon in Oedipus Rex by Stravinsky with conductor John Eliot Gardiner and the Berlin Philharmonic.
https://askonasholt.com/artist...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
About the Poetry & Poet:
Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall (1883–1922) was a Canadian poet, dramatist, and librarian who was heralded as one of the best writers of her generation. As a young woman, she pursued writing with tenacity and enjoyed early success in writing competitions. After a brief time in England, Pickthall settled in British Columbia, Canada, where she continued to write before dying at the age of thirty-eight. Though widely published in fiction, her literary legacy depends more on the strength of her poetry, which has inspired comparisons with poets like William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound. Her poetry includes collections like Homecomers, The Woodcarver’s Wife, and Little Songs. Pickthall "stood as proof in the eyes of the next generation of female poets that women could indeed earn the respect and attention of a literary establishment dominated by men."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.poetryfoundation.o...
About the Devotion Author:
Cameron J. Anderson, M.F.A.
Artist and Writer
Distinguished Fellow, Art and Literature
The Lumen Center
SL Brown Foundation
Liminalmaker.com
Cameron J. Anderson (M.F.A., Cranbrook Academy of Art) is an artist, associate director of Upper House, an online site for Christian gathering and learning located in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and former executive director of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA). Prior to joining CIVA, he served on the staff of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for thirty years, most recently as the national director of Graduate and Faculty Ministries. He is the author of The Faithful Artist: A Vision for Evangelicalism and the Arts and the co-editor of Faith and Vision: Twenty-Five Years of Christians in the Visual Arts.
https://www.ivpress.com/camero...