I don’t know about you, but once you’ve seen something one way, it can be really hard to see it another way or shall I say, “unsee” it? For instance, the classic optical illusions you would see in Psychology class. What stands out to you? Do you see a duck or a rabbit? Can you go back and forth between the two or are you stuck seeing one versus the other?

My desire is to help you with that today. Because the story we are going to look at, I’ve typically have seen it one way, I think many of you have as well. My desire is to help you unsee it, not dismiss it, but “unsee it” in a certain way, because I believe it will elevate the meaning of the story and the passage. My hope is that you will walk out and see the craftiness of chaos all around that God invites us differently into trust and freedom.

Remember, as we continue to approach Genesis, the ancients were trying to give language for their understanding of how the world worked and their understanding of Yahweh, God. I say that, because we just got done going through 10 messages with the first two chapters of Genesis; looking at the beauty and wonder of the Creator and his intention, formation, and invitation. We saw that it was good, tov, until last week when we began to see how it wasn’t tov, good, for man to be alone, which gives us the need for humanity, out of the one came two, to be one.

Read Genesis 2:25-- Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Can you allow yourself to see the wonder, beauty, intimacy, closeness, AND no shame. It’s fantastic….

Keep reading, because it goes right into Genesis 3:1a - Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman…

Wait, what? Don’t run past that…. So many questions? Where did the snake come from, why is it talking? Let’s just acknowledge that this is a strange story to our contemporary eyes and ears. But let us also not jump ahead and simply say “this is just Satan.” We will get there, but I want to show you something first.

Remember, the ancients are describing something, especially within creation. At creation when God spoke into existence the animals, what did he say? Creatures of the land, sea, and air, filled the earth above and below. Where does a serpent fit? Sea? Land? No legs, slivers on the dust of the land. Not only that the ancient Egyptians used them as symbols and they represented powerful symbols of chaos creatures, creatures that don’t properly belong to the divinely ordered world.

Pastor and author Manny Arango shares it this way in his book, Crushing Chaos, “Images aren’t just images. They are symbols that must be interpreted, and those interpretations contain ancient wisdom for the modern reader. The Bible paints a consistent and compelling picture for us of what kind of beast stood before Adam and Even in the garden temple of Eden…. The ancients would’ve seen Genesis 3 as the moment that the untamable force of Chaos broke into our culture.”

The image of the serpent would have meant more to the ancients than it does to us today. Granted, I’m not a fan of snakes for a variety of reasons, but I do believe this is one of them, the fear of how the snake came into the garden, tempted Eve and Adam and disrupted all of life.

But to go a step further, we can’t simply say this was a serpent, and it represented chaos in ancient tradition. We must see how this image, this serpent is portrayed in other parts of scripture.

Notice Isaiah 27:1- the Lord will punish with his sword— his fierce, great and powerful sword— Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.

Job 1:7- 7 The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Revelation 12:9- The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Yes, we can see the serpent as the satan, evil, but I also want you to keep that picture of chaos. Even Revelation 12 referenced it, leads the world astray, creates chaos, disrupts the order, is crafty, deceptive.

The reason I want us to see it more than just the avenue of sin, is that for some, you are in sin management. You either try to manage your own sin or the sin of others. But we miss the power of what sin actually is and how the serpent deceived humanity, Adam and Eve.
Because even though anxiety isn’t a sin, it is a form of chaos. Poverty isn’t a sin, but it creates chaos. Suffering and sickness aren’t sin, but chaos is created. The serpent and sin distorted all of life and we must understand that so we can see the Hope we truly need.
Let’s acknowledge that chaos slithered into the garden and it is bigger than what we think.
What does looking at the start of Genesis 3 like that mean for you? Is it a shift to what you traditionally believe about it? How can seeing sin and satan as a chaos monsters actually elevate the destruction of sin? In the world? In your life?

Take a moment today and reflect, but also invite God, the one who brings order in the chaos into your day. Asking, seeking him for order along the way.