No Need to Fight Fire With Fire

Until I heard a Jewish Rabbi explain the Creation Story, I never thought of the angel guarding the Tree of Life as a good thing.
I mean God's love and forgiveness toward us was (and still is) wonderful, but, it was always that the Tree of Life had to be guarded because we misbehaved. We were bad. We should've known better. We were tempted to think wrong things about God. We sinned. Basically: "Bad baby, bad baby, bad baby!!".
But when I heard Rabbi Daniel Lapin explain the story...it was different. Lapin said that God placed the flaming sword at the door to the Tree of Life in order to keep the door open...rather than to CLOSE it. Really?
In other words, the Father placed that flaming sword at the door to the Tree, in order to be able to invite us back in...that we might be able to have fellowship with Him anyway.

You know, for the first time, when hearing the Creation Story, instead of envisioning a wooden cross, with a bloody, battered Jesus hanging from it, I was able to imagine the Father's arms reaching for me, saying: "I want to be with you.". Until that moment, I had thought that this was NOT allowed. God the Father had to turn his face AWAY from us, because we sinned, right? Were it not for Jesus, we would all be going to Hell, right? (Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus, yeah?).

Wait a minute.

This was just a slight shift in perspective, but it seemed to change my view around completely. So God guarded the Tree in order to make sure we were invited IN... not to keep us OUT. This sword of fire, was not like an omen God was using to let us know how unacceptable we were. It was a sword of protection to keep us from further harm and keep the invitation of intimacy open to us...

As a born again Christian, the beginning of Genesis, was the SIN on which, the rest of the Bible was based. We became unacceptable to God the Father, Jesus was our only hope, and without him, we would face Hell forever. I basically said this already, but actually, this proves my point. I was a Christian...on "fire" for Jesus...and wanting to "save" anyone I could from an eternity in Hell. As a Child, I had an illustrated book of Bible Stories (Which I read with excitement because (the Holy Spirit) gave me a passion for them). But, when I got a little older, and was actually in church, those Old Testament stories soon began to lose the sense of childlike wonderment.

In plain English:

I really did not think it was necessary to be intimately acquainted with these stories as an adult. I would hear wonderful Evangelical teachers (that I really respected)say things like: "I'm sure glad we were born on this side of the cross, aren't you?" I won't name who said this, but what he meant is that it's a relief to know that today, the blood sacrifices are not necessary, and neither is physical circumcision. Christ (ultimately) was the Passover Lamb, when we belong to him, we are to take up our "cross" daily and follow Him. Why is it that all of the sudden, this "truth," that always seemed so non-religious, is like the most religious thing I've ever written about? Strange, since I just started this blog. Anyway, I'm writing this blog now, because something is off kilter, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. Christ's love and forgiveness is in me...but what's missing? I think if I chronicle the journey I've been on for the last year or so, I might find out what it is. Care to join me?