There is nothing worse than waiting for a diagnosis. You see signs and symptoms of sickness, but you don’t know why. And if you don’t know why, you don’t know if there is a cure. It consumes all of your thoughts and your prayers. When the diagnosis finally comes, even if the news is not good the diagnosis itself brings feelings of resolve and clarity, a way forward. Because worse than any bad diagnosis is the answer, “We don’t actually know what is wrong.” When we talk about the message of the Bible, we often frame it as good news and bad news. The good news is that God loves us and wants to restore us to relationship with Him; and the bad news is our passage this morning, Genesis 3. What happened to us in Genesis 3 is the worst moment in our history. But the diagnosis it gives is clarifying for any member of the human race who reads it. We can look at our thoughts and actions, look around at the state of things in the world, and know exactly what is wrong and exactly the only way to be cured: that God alone can heal and undo what is killing us and making us sick. Even in our diagnosis, we get a glimmer of the hope of the healing and restoration that God will bring to save us.
