His name is Aaron (actually that’s not his real name), and he is two years old, but you don’t want to hear the rest of his story!
I’m going to share it with you anyway, because it speaks to the question we left hanging last week, “Why did God plant the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden?”
A mission team in another country got word that a two-year-old boy was being held captive and was being sexually abused.
And worse, it was all live streamed to a paying online audience.
The violence and trauma the toddler experienced was unthinkable and horrible beyond imagination — just total evil!
Sheila, who was with the mission team when they rescued him said, “He was tiny and fragile and just longed to be held.”
So, they held him, found a trained foster family to care for him, including the trauma treatment he so desperately needed.
Now Aaron is safe, loved, and cared for, and has both a future and hope. So why did God create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
And why is Aaron’s story the answer to that question?
“To him who by means of his power working in us is able to do so much more than we can ever ask for or even think of; to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen.”
— Ephesians 3: 20-21
The automatic and simple answer to the “tree question” is that we were given a choice — assuming that it, like everything else, is about us. But maybe it’s not about us?
Maybe it’s about the cosmic battle between good and evil? Satan brought evil into God’s kingdom long before the snake brought evil into God’s creation, i.e., there was a war in heaven.
And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was planted to recognize the presence and the reality of both good and evil in God’s creation.
Ephesians ends with God’s armor and the Bible in Revelation ends with the final battle between good and evil. So, the story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil becomes a call to enter the battle as a warrior who:
• does what is good;
• and prays for and rescues and heals the victims of evil.
Like all the little Aarons who’ve been damaged and destroyed by
evil!
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
