Our Family Story

2018-06-10 – Year B – Pentecost 6-5 – The Rev. Christopher Klukas

Genesis 3:1-21; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13-18; Mark 3:20-35

• Family Stories. How did your family end up in Florida? The United States?
• My family is Norwegian, Irish, and German, but our name, Klukas, comes from the German part of the family.
• The Klukas’ were from a small, mechanically oriented town in Russia/Poland, and many people from that town moved to the United States to settle in Hartford, CT, known as the “Hardware City” because it was the home of Stanley tools and other hardware companies. My great Grandfather Martin immigrated in 1906.
• Our name was “Klukaszewski” or “Kluchescheske” but it was shortened to “Klukas” when he became a citizen in 1943 so it would be easier to pronounce and sound less Polish. They attended a German speaking Lutheran Church.
• If you trace our family history back far enough, you will find that we all share a common Ancestor in Noah, and before him in Adam and Eve.

The Fall

• According to Augustin, before the fall Adam and eve were able to sin and able not to sin.
• The serpent is crafty, shrewd, and cunning. The serpent here is a depiction of Satan.
  • Satan was a part of the heavenly host (Isaiah 14:12 might be a reference to this).
  • He rebelled against God and took a third of the angels with him (Revelation 12).
  • His goal is to put himself in the place of God by drawing people away from God and getting them to worship him instead (Luke 4:5-7).
  • Lies are one of his favorite tools “did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1).
• The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
  • “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
  • “It would seem that the tree bore this name because the issue was whether Adam would let God tell him what was good and bad for him or would seek to decide that for himself, in disregard of what God had said. By eating from this tree Adam would, in effect, be claiming that he could know and decide what was good and evil for him without any reference to God.”
• Nakedness, shame
  • Before eating of the fruit, the man and woman were naked and they were not ashamed. After eating they both feel compelled to cover up and hide. Now they have something to be ashamed of.

Original Sin

• Romans 5:12 – All sinned in Adam’s sin because he was our representative. Just like I have inherited the name “Klukas” because one of my relatives, a long time ago, decided to change our family name from Klukaszewski.
• We have inherited mortality from Adam, and death is a consequence of sin, so it stands to reason that we have also inherited the sin of adam along with his mortality.
• We continue to feel the effects of this fall today. “Not able not to sin.”
  • Romans 7:18-19 – “the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
  • Because of original sin, “man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit;”
• It doesn’t seem fair that we would be dealing with the consequences of something that we didn’t do. As if paying off the credit card debt of the great great great grandfather you never met!
  • Hereditary disease, the national debt, the cycle of abuse,
  • The president and other elected officials represent us to the rest of the world.
• “It may fairly be claimed that the Fall narrative gives the only convincing explanation of the perversity of human nature that the world has ever seen.”
• So where does that leave us? Stuck, unable to save ourselves, and condemned to death.

The gift of Christ

• Proto-evangelium “the first Gospel” – the preview of redemption (Genesis 3:15).
• Romans 5:17-19
• This is what the rescue of Jesus is all about. Just as Adam stood as a representative for all of humanity, Jesus is the second Adam and he, too, stood as a representative for all humanity. Death came into the world through Adam’s sin. Life returned to the world through the righteousness of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross.
• This life is available as a free gift to all who put their faith/trust in Jesus.
• When Christ comes into our life, he frees our will and we are finally able not to sin, but we still face temptations and give into those temptations.
• We await the final glory when all will be set right and we will be not able to sin!
• Satan and his demons and all who have decided to follow themselves instead of God will be bound up and cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20).
• And then comes the renewed creation, a new heaven and a new earth. Revelation 21:1-4. In this passage we see all of the effects of the fall reversed, and the dwelling place of God is once again with Man, just as it was in the beginning.