HEREAS, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, B’resheet ; His Spirit nestled, His Word dispatched an everlasting displacement of empty darkness by fulfilling, liberating light; three worked as One, God-Spirit-Word; that is, Father-Spirit-Son in the beginning. Holy, holy, holy!
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Deuteronomy 6:4 NIV
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty…”
Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8 NIV
God formed man, Adam, in the likeness of His image using the dirt of the earth, adamah, planted a garden in Eden, Delight, and placed him there. God purposed Adam to work-worship in the garden and entrusted its care to Adam as guardian. Instituting two as more fully prospering the work than one, God fashioned a helpmate for Adam from Adam’s own rib, Eve, male and female He created them, complementary yet united as one, a line unbroken with God as their third.
This beginning is both ephemeral and eternal, serving as true history and recursive poetry of what was and is to come. Adam and Eve were blessed to be fruitful and multiply: In the inimitable interface of Spiritual Kingdom and natural world, all mankind is born of this beginning.
HEREAS, this pleasing garden, filled with all kinds of trees, beautiful to behold, goodness to nourish, was set apart as a place of meeting, sheltering holy fellowship between Adam and Eve and God, free-flowing encounters inviting intimacy, communion in all ways true, noble, right, pure, lovely, excellent, and praiseworthy.
Yet another one infiltrated the garden, adversarial, opposing, with evil intent, inciting Eve to think contrary to God’s way, confusing God’s Words with shifting objective, through Eve turning Adam away from his guardpost. They bit, instantly realizing they were uncovered, only gradually retreating to certain death. The blessed existence became cursed.
God acted on their behalf, providing temporary clothing until such time as an eternal covering, kappurah, would prevail; ushering them out of the sheltered garden to experience the results of their chronic desire to act alone; a flashing, cacophonic guard at the threshold of their exit, until the fullness of time for His restoring.
HEREAS, God ordained mankind’s freedom to trust Him or turn from Him, equally He orchestrated the way back. Set forth in seed or offspring, Zera’, One would come forth to crush the head of the adversary. Through God’s chosen lineage the holy Word became flesh, enlivened among mankind. Born to Joseph and Mary though conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Messiah, came to heal, proclaim, release, ensure, defend, guard, deliver, and vivify the way of mankind back to God.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6 NIV
Jesus upholds God’s forgiveness for actions made apart from God, actions by nature separated and subject to evil, divisive and deceiving, which promote more of their ilk. God’s gracious act comes to all through Jesus’ complete coherence to God’s will, a coherence Adam could not sustain. Unjust arrest and ruling, crucifixion, death, pierced rib, rising from death on the third day—these facts foretold in Scripture and many more confirmed—being God’s accepted atonement for each and every human debt charged for actions made apart from God. God has accepted these terms; He offers to each and every human personally to accept these terms.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Acts 2:21 NIV
Accepting these terms is salvation. God implores but does not force His forgiveness.
HEREAS the unfolding of His Word gives light, God has illuminated more and more of His identity and His intention through Israel and Christ, through the land and the Word.
Israel in all expressions—grandson of Abraham, son of Isaac, Jacob transformed, father of twelve sons increasing to 12 tribes, nation of people chosen to guard God’s ways, land locating much of the history and activity of God on earth, land to sprout the Seed, lineage to the birth of Christ, vineyard of the Lord Almighty, tree receiving graftings of wild branches.
Christ in all expressions—son of God, son of Mary and Joseph, child born in Bethlehem, Word made flesh, Rabboni, storyteller, Savior, Seed, Root, Branch, Firstfruit, Risen, Conqueror of death, seated at the right hand of God the Father, Lord of Lords, lamb of God, King of Kings, the true vine.
The land, formed and shaped by God, reveals His handiwork; the Words spoken and inspired by God reveal His inner workings, His cherished, recursive poetry.
HEREAS, God purposed work-worship for mankind, He appointed 3 feasts to celebrate and make vivid His intention, to help us look forward to the life to come. Three times a year, we are to gather together, following harvests of ancient grains and fruit trees, entering into the intricate revelations of the land and the Word: Pesach, Shavu’ot, and Sukkot or Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
In turn, Passover branches to three successive feasts, and Tabernacles is preceded by two holy days for a complete, yearly story-celebration of seven, as a menorah, concluding in a rehearsal of our return: God’s sounding to His threshold on Yom Teruah, donning Christ’s atoning kappurah on Yom Kippur, coming to the table laden with fruitful abundance, sheltered in eternal presence with the Lord, Sukkot.
This pattern of celebration holds rich embrace of Israel and Christ, first given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, bestowing poignant signs of the One to come, Zera’, Christ, Messiah. While lost to many church traditions over centuries, may they be restored as treasure stored in secret places. May we find delight in His Presence, worshipping Him as He decreed, for surely God relates His justice, mercy, and faithfulness in all He does.
HEREAS, God’s Word is living and active, vivified by His Spirit, our Scripture-pursuit, that is, reading silently and aloud, contemplating, pondering, meditating, considering, praying, dancing, and singing the Words; lingering to notice how they relate to each other and come together; creates a resonance in our daily lives such that patterns and convergences occur between the Word and our life experiences.
God’s Word comes about to describe our livelihood. We find identifying markers from the Word in our activity and progress, leading to deeper trust, reverence, reliance, revelation, and intimacy with Him.
HEREFORE I, Shelley S. Cramm, wife & mother, author & gardener, by authority of co-ownership and in devotion to Almighty God, do hereby proclaim www.gardenindelight.com, a website as a beautiful engagement of the land, that is, our gardens, to the Word.
A psalter, crammed-full of writings, ponderings, photography, renderings, songs, poetry, artwork, history, storytelling, and gardening how-to, so that in every hopeful, revealing way, with insight and coherence to God’s Word and our Master Jesus Christ, Messiah, its visitors and followers make T’shuvah—pirouette!—their turn to God our Father, receive God’s forgiveness in Jesus, draw deeper into God’s delight and find strength for patient endurance, made ready for reigning with Him, looking forward to the life to come.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eleventh day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, of the Mayflower Advancement the four hundredth, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred forty-fifth.
Shelley Salter Cramm
©2020 Shelley S. Cramm
Drop caps and flourishes taken from An Herbal for the Bible, “Drawen into English by Thomas Newton,” 1587, London, from the original in Latin by Lemnius
As this proclamation is a reiteration of the Word of God, I have linked many of the underlying Scriptures to their place in the Bible, featured on www.blueletterBible.org, for further reference and resource. I hope you enjoy digging in!
NIV denotes Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
