“Punishment With Love!”

“Punishment With Love!”(Gen.3:17-24).
Today is “Seed Blessing Sunday” in the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC). Seeds are brought for blessing because we have entered the planting season.
March is, therefore, a month in which, through our efforts in tilling the soil, we expect a short-term future reward of harvest.
Planting season, however, is also a period reminding us that our labour in the farm is punishment after the Fall of man in the garden of Eden. Labour on the soil is in tandem with the punishment Adam received, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed be the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat from it all the the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your fruit until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; and to dust you will return.”
In the month of March, we are reminded that we refused to listen to the voice of God and preferred to listen to the voice of the woman who listened to the voice of the serpent instead of God.
When God speaks, we ignore his voice to our loss!
Some may say March has another ill-omen as Julius Caesar fell to the hands of his enemies as he refused to “beware of the ides of March.” His life may have been prolonged if only he had listened.
The good side of March is that God’s mercy, compassion, and grace are expressed for us. He provides the necessary weather for cultivation, and he provides the seeds and gives us the strength to cultivate and plant.
God’s love has never departed from us; not even when man was expelled from the garden. He “made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” That is punishment in love!
What an expression of Love! Love that culminated in the story of redemption through the incarnation, and from incarnation to the cross, from the cross to the grave and from the grave up to heaven where he reigns supreme as the Christ.
Due to our hardness of heart, the Son of God suffered in the hands of evil people. In this month of March, we will commence the reenactment of his suffering and death as we journey we him from Ash Wednesday through forty days of the Season of Lent.
Join us on Wednesday to receive Ash on your forehead as a mark of contrition and penitence. Dear friend, join us daily in Lent services as we make efforts to weed out the spirit of disobedience and to listen to God’s voice with the readiness to obey him.
Sunday prayer: Thank you, LORD Almighty, for your mercy and grace through the redemptive work of Christ. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.
02/03/2025.