Perhaps my favorite nursery rhyme is Humpty Dumpty.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
As I read that, I have a question. Who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall?
Humpty Dumpty is a picture of what happened at the greatest crime scene of all time. Adam and Eve, sat in this perfect place, called Eden. Who pushed them? Obviously, they were nudged by Satan, but ultimately, they pushed themselves off that wall. They made a decision that led to sin and to the fall.
When we think about biblical history, Adam and Eve became the first Humpty Dumpty of all humanity as they fell off that wall and broke into a thousand pieces. They couldn’t get back on the wall; they couldn’t get back into Eden.
We have spent generations trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again through:
- religiosity.
- good works.
- wars that have tried to settle disputes.
- positive thinking.
- entertainment.
- drugs to try to dull pain.
- movements and philosophies.
We can even use something like Intentional Living in the wrong way to try to rectify what only God can.
God is the only One who can put Humpty Dumpty back together again through His offer of salvation, but the cracks remain.
The Crime Scene
The reality is what happened in the Garden of Eden, when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, became the greatest crime scene of all time.
At a crime scene, the first thing you want to do is to find out what really happened. When people ask for help, they’re facing emotional or relational issues. And I’m always interested in going back to the Genesis story in terms of their own life.
- What was the starting point of these issues that they’re facing in their life?
- What happened?
- Why did it happen?
- And how is it affecting them today?
As we come to know Christ, we hear about Adam and Eve’s fall, their sin and find the only
solution is a sacrifice, and God provided that. Then there’s a period of silence between the old and new testaments. Then Jesus comes on the scene as the ultimate redeemer.
- Jesus lived His life in perfection.
- He went to the cross and gave His life in exchange for ours.
- He was buried and He rose again.
- He returned to Heaven to prepare a place for us.
- And He’s coming back again to retrieve us to be with Him (John 14).
The problem is, we don’t hear very much about how what happened at the fall affects us. We learn about brokenness and that we need a Savior, but not about the cracks that exist in our lives as a result of Humpty Dumpty being put back together again with a lot of cracks.
We’re not immune as followers of Christ from the cracks that occurred on that moment in time. It only took a day, a few hours or thirty minutes to move from a place of perfection – sitting
on the wall of Eden – to Adam and Eve’s fall. Humanity has spent eons of time trying to correct and rectify everything that was destroyed in that moment.
You and I are the victims of Adam and Eve’s sin. When Humpty Dumpty fell, we were dragged along and we’re still suffering from those things that occurred emotionally, relationally and physically. What happened on that day, in that place, is real.
Shame, blame and pain vibrated throughout history when Humpty Dumpty hit the ground, and those three things affect the lives of every single person today. And we’ll look at these three cracks in the following blog, 3 Cracks in Humanity from the Fall that Affect You Today.
