Dark Devotions (Ray Patchett & Steve Messer)
therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
We live in a time when terms such as ‘displaced people’ are all too well understood. This is usually caused by the failure of human rule at some level, such as racism, unjust socio-political structures, war induced poverty and so on. But, in the Biblical narrative this has one underlying cause, which is forceful removal or displacement of our first parents from the primal holy place, Eden.
Eden is structured as a holy place with many similarities to the later tabernacle and temple, particularly that the divine image bearer, Adam as the kingly priest, was to serve and keep the holy paradise (Genesis 2:15).
This same combination of verbs applies to the priests in the tabernacle (Numbers 18:7); holy places faced east (Numbers 3:38) and Cherubim are fierce guardians of what is holy (Numbers 7:89).
The seduction of the claim that humanity could rule in place of God without consequence persists in the uncountable failed attempts to re-create paradise/utopia. And this failure has been working itself out throughout history. We are now ‘like God’ in ‘knowing good and evil’ and we have demonstrably failed to be able to rule this world as arbitrators of good and evil.
Some commentators have noted the silver lining to this dark cloud in that living in this world forever, where humans determine good and evil apart from
God, would be unbearable. Death is the only consequence of being barred from the holy presence of the author of life. Hence, a fierce guardian of God’s holiness wields a serious weapon in keeping humanity from the tree of life.
Instead of serving and keeping the garden paradise Adam will be kept from the holy garden and serve the ground from which he was taken until he returns to it. However, there is a way back to Eden and access to the tree of life but only via the death of the one who gives life, the lamb who was slain, who rules the Eden-like new Jerusalem.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.
Revelation 22:1-3 (ESV)
Zechariah 6 marks the end of the book’s first section as the prophet receives his eighth vision concerning four horse-drawn chariots which parallels the first vision with its four horses. The judgement that was anticipated in vision one is now made actual as God’s Spirit finds rest in Babylon. Times of peace and rest are the right times for building a temple and we now find more about the temple Yahweh will have built. A man called the ‘Branch’ will accomplish this. The Branch is a figure introduced in the writings of earlier prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. Zechariah adds to his portrait: he will be someone who combines the roles of king and priest as he establishes God’s dwelling place among his people.
