Lent Lesson 1: Clues in the Garden

The first in a 6-lesson Lent series to guide family conversation

Are you ready to uncover the first clues to the Messiah Mystery? You’ll need to use your imagination. Put yourself in the story, walk around with the characters, let no detail escape you.

Talk about these questions with your family over dinner or as a bedtime conversation one night this week.
Detectives ask a lot of questions so here are a few to get you started:

-What do you think the Garden of Eden was like?

-What did Adam and Eve see and hear? What did they taste? Smell? Touch?

-How would it be different than what we experience today?

-Why were these two people in the Garden? Why did God make them in the first place?

You can read the comments below to your family, taking turns reading around the table or one person reading to the rest.

The experience of the garden must have been nothing short of spectacular. But far better than any smell or taste or sight was being in the presence of God, their creator. You see, one of the reasons God created Adam and Eve was to have a friendship with them. He tells us He made them in His image, like God.

This friendship with God is only true for mankind. God didn’t have a friend relationship with the animals, only with Adam and Eve. This is how life was meant to be. The garden was perfect because He was there. His presence and nearness is what made it good.

But Adam and Eve disobeyed. They believed the lie of the serpent, that God was withholding something good from them, that God didn’t love them.  Have you ever believed this lie? Yes, you have. I have. We all have. And that is what sin looks like in our world: believing that God doesn’t love us, that we know better, that we would choose better for our lives than our loving Heavenly Father.

Because God is both perfect love and perfect justice, He must correct His children’s disobedience. And like any honorable king, God must also respond to evil. His discipline to Adam and Eve is the gift of pain so that they won’t forget what they did wrong.

At the same time, He shows His deep love by giving them a promise. Genesis 3:15 prophesies, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This is God’s very first clue. “He shall bruise your head” means the Messiah will someday defeat Satan and win His children back! Believe it or not—in the very moment when paradise has been lost—God offers you and me comfort, hope, and a promise of Jesus.

As you ready your heart for Easter, thank God for how loving He is. In the midst of the very first sin, the very first time that people didn’t trust Him and His character—He was already planning to die so that we could be with Him again. He was already planning His merciful rescue of a hurting world.

That is Love.

Father, Thank You that you were not caught off guard by Adam and Eve’s disobedience. You had a in plan in place from the very beginning, before the world even began. Because you loved them and you love us You prepared a way for us to come back to You, to know You, and to live with You forever. We stand in awe of You.

This is lesson one in a 6-lesson Lent series to guide family conversations. Be sure to subscribe below to receive all 6 discussions. If you’d like to go deeper with activities and Bible study, check out The Messiah Mystery, an interactive curriculum to teach your family about Lent.