Withered Cornfield, Arizona
“Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” Genesis 3:17
Adam and Eve’s rebellion was disastrous, shattering their ability to love, rule, and worship as God intended. Cursed was their relationship with each other—Adam now blamed Eve for his rebellion and God foretold that Eve would strive against Adam’s leadership. Cursed was their relationship with the creation—through painful labor Adam would bring forth food from the ground, and through painful labor Eve would bring forth children. Cursed was their relationship with God—they now hid from Him and were banished from communing with Him in the garden. No longer able to eat from the tree of life, they would eventually die.
Every succeeding generation has been poisoned by Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Our relationships with ourselves and others are marked more by blameshifting and strife than by self-sacrificing love. The creation, too, suffers the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin. From famine and earthquakes, to disease and pain, the natural world appears to be at war with itself and with us. None of us seeks God and we place our trust in created things that always fail us in the end. Finally, we die. We are broken images.
In the midst of Adam and Eve’s brokenness, God offered the hope of restoration to them and to their descendants—including us. He promised that one day a descendant of Adam and Eve would crush Satan’s head, though He Himself would be bruised in the process. As a sign of this promise, God killed an innocent animal and fashioned its skin into clothes for Adam and Eve to wear. This sacrifice of life would be a continual reminder of God’s mercy in sparing their lives, of the consequences of trusting a creature rather than the Creator, and of the suffering the Promised One would have to endure to crush Satan, restoring Adam and Eve and their descendants to God.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 esv
“The Lands Are Ours,” Quito, Ecuador — Otavaleño Boy, Ecuador
The contrast between the boldly defiant words displayed on the wall, “THE LANDS ARE OURS,” and the broken spirit displayed on this woman’s face is sadly ironic. It is also convicting. I photographed many such scenes during my travels before I was a Christian, and in my discomfort or lack of concern, I often used my camera as a shield to protect myself from personal involvement.
Today, however, knowing the life-changing and culture-transforming power of the love of Jesus—and knowing that poverty and injustice begin with a false view of the reality of God—I find it more difficult to hide. Or do I? The heart is deceitful indeed, and it is only by God’s grace that we are aware of it.
There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.
Romans 3:10-11 nabs
Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin. Romans 5:12
National Cemetery, Los Angeles, California — Aged Hindu Worshiper, Pashupatinath, Nepal
Nowhere are the real-life consequences of Adam and Eve’s fall more disturbingly evident than at a war cemetery. Nowhere is the truth of God’s judgment in Genesis 2:17 more undeniably confirmed: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Every war in history began with the spiritual death that mankind suffered in the Garden. The cost of the Fall was brought home powerfully to me as I walked among a seemingly endless sea of graves at an American cemetery near the D-Day beaches of Normandy, France. Again and again the same date of death appeared on the headstones: June 6, 1944. It was a day of great loss and tragedy in the lives of thousands of families. It was also the day I was born.