Bible trivia is one of my favorite pastimes. I love the iPhone apps that challenge my Biblical knowledge, obtained over the years of church attendance and involvement in youth ministry. Knowledge that I often take for granted. Today I downloaded a new trivia app as the old one was repeating questions and I glazed through the first 10 levels with ease. Until this question popped up.
Who is Cain's eldest son?
The multiple choice selections practically gave the answer away. But I had to admit, I didn't KNOW this question. If this was a common core test I would have failed. (haha-math teacher joke!) I was only able to select the right answer via process of elimination. So I looked it up to see if this answer was correct.
Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. (Genesis 4:17)
Okay, did your jaw just drop to the floor like mine did? Of course I had to research this because the Enoch I knew was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death. (Hebrews 11:5) I began to research this new information and here is what I found:
Okay, I breathe a sigh of pride, it was not the same Enoch. But still I think there is a lesson to be learned here. Cain murdered his brother. His descendants became the Cainanites-destined to wander the wilderness, banished, set apart, cursed as a people apart from God's holy and Chosen. And yet God blessed the 7th generation with new hope. If the Hebrew tradition holds correct, Noah's Wife was a descendent of Cain, therefore all of Cain's descendants were killed in the food save Noah, his Wife, and their three sons.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of the world. Sure, they thought he was a crazy boat building looney-but they knew he was innocent, they knew he loved and worshiped God. They just thought he was crazy for doing so. Noah was surrounded by Atheist. And yet, the hopeless romantic inside of me wonders what brought his wife, a great granddaughter of Cain himself, the murderer, the outcast, the cursed one, to Noah?
Did she know the Lord BEFORE Noah? Did Noah lead her to the Lord? What role did she play in the the building of the boat? Did she defend her husband's actions, or silently stand by his side? Did she take up hammer and nails? What role did she have in the raising of their sons? Was she blameless or was she just allowed to ride along out of faithfulness towards her husband?
But I think the greater story I see here is a story of forgiveness and redemption. Despite Cain's great sin of Killing his brother in the field out of sheer jealous rage, God still loved Cain. God could have easily wiped Cain's name off of the face of this earth with one flood, but in the union of Noah and his wife, Naaman { (Hebrew: נַעֲמָה Na‘ămāh) is an individual mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in Genesis 4:22. A descendant of Cain, she was the only mentioned daughter of Lamech and Zillah and their youngest child; her brother was Tubal-cain, while Jabal and Jubal were her half-brothers, sons of Lamech's other wife Adah.} he chose to continue the Line of Cain with new hope...in the story of Jesus and his redemption.
WHAT? What am I talking about here...
Noah...Shem...and the linage from here continues onto Jesus Christ himself.
God loves everyone, he desires that not ONE of us should perish. No sin is too great for redemption. Adam and Eve screwed up. We know that, we see their consequences every day. We hear their story. But honestly, I never thought about Cain before today. He murder his brother-what a jerk. Yes, he deserves the curse God put on him. Go get him GOD! That'll teach him.
But then what. How many times do we think this way towards others in sin. I know I have, okay, still do sometimes. But I also know that I have personally sought and benefitted from God's love, mercy, grace and forgiveness.
God could have wiped Cain's name off the face of the earth...but he didn't. He loved Cain, and he grieved when Cain killed Abel. Not just because Abel was dead, Abel was righteous, what is their to mourn in his death? He loved God, therefore he left this world and was able to sit in the presence of God. But Cain, stayed behind. In his sin. Marked for all of mankind to disown.
My heart now breaks for Cain. That poor man. Did he live his whole life thinking that he was eternally rejected by God? Did his sin separate God and harden his heart? I think so. I think rather than God cursing Cain, I think Cain walked away from God therefore the curse that he suffered was brought on by his own feelings of inadequacy. He walked a road away from God that lasted for 7 generations of people! Everyone, every man, woman and child that spawn from Cain's seed lived a life apart from God SO MUCH SO that God cried for 40 days and and 40 nights growing all of Cain's descendants to eternal death and separation from their heavenly father....ALL, save one.
God Loved Cain. God loved 7 generations of Cain. And God restored Cain's Sin. Along with his Father Adam's Sin, and his Mother Eve's sin, in the death and blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ over 50 Generations Later.
I sit and type in Awe. (I told you...I learn audibly so if none of this makes sense its because I am processing it in my head as I type!)
SO I end today's reflection in this-THE JOY OF THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH. Nehemiah 8:10
ON this 26 day path to finding my identity in in God, I recognize that nothing that I can do provides me with the joy of the salvation that I find in the Lord. I recognize that my multitude of sins, weakness, and gloom is not my burden to carry. I need to hand all of it over to God dare I walk in the ways of Cain...a path that can only lead me away from the Lord. That if I am to find Joy, then I cannot find it in ANYTHING that I do. My Joy can only be found in the Lord, and therefore in his Joy, I will find the strength to carry on.
I also learn that my grumbling is my outward judgement of others. And if I want to learn something from a man, who shares the name of Cain's firstborn son, then it is not my job to judge others. Because when I judge others, the only thing I do is permanently mark their foreheads with a Curse of God that is not mine to give. I rub their sin in their face, when in reality, they are probably already aware of their sins, and carry their burden with a hardened heart. So my Job is to love them, to help ease the wall they have built against God. And to share in the JOY that is MY strength, in hopes that they too can find redemption and forgiveness in God.
"It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, 15to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
Jude 1:14-15
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