The Man Who Walked Right Off the Page

Do you know what a list is? A long row of names, one after another, like beads on a string.

Genesis 5 is a list like that. It tells about the very first families, the great-great-great-grandfathers from long, long ago. It starts with Adam, the very first man from the garden, and then comes Seth, the new baby God gave Adam and Eve after that terrible sad day between their two boys. And it goes like this:

Adam lived, and had children. And he died.

Seth lived, and had children. And he died.

Enosh lived. And he died.

Over and over. Name after name. They lived a long time, longer than anyone lives now. They had sons and daughters. And then those three small words come again, soft and heavy, like a door closing in another room.

And he died.

And he died.

You can almost feel the sadness underneath the list. Because that is how things have been since the garden. Everyone who is born grows up, and grows old, and one day says goodbye. Even the strong ones. Even the ones who lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. The list keeps walking toward the same dark door, and you start to wonder. Will it ever stop? Will it always end this way?

And then you come to a man named Enoch.

The list tells you he lived. It tells you he had a son, and more children after that. So far it sounds the same as all the rest.

But about Enoch it says something it says about no one else. It says: Enoch walked with God.

Not just lived near God. Walked with him. Like a small child slipping a hand into a big, warm hand and walking along together, all day, every day, his whole life. Step beside step, friends the whole way.

When you reach the end of Enoch's part of the list, you wait for those three sad words. You wait for and he died.

They never come.

Instead the Bible says: Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

One day Enoch was walking with God, the way he always did. And he was so close, and God so loved having him near, that God simply brought him home. No goodbye at the dark door. No and he died. God reached down and gathered him up, the way a father scoops a sleepy child off the floor and carries him to bed.

One man, in a whole chapter of dyings, walked right off the page and into God's arms.

That one line is like a little window cut into a dark wall, letting in a thin ray of morning. It says: this list is not how the story has to end.

Long after Enoch, Someone else came who walked with God perfectly. And he did go through the dark door. On purpose. For you. But he did not stay behind it. He pushed it open from the inside and walked out into the morning, alive.

And he is coming back. Coming to do for everyone who loves him just what God did for Enoch that long-ago day: to gather his whole family up and carry them home, every single one.

The list will end, dear one. But not with and he died.

Even way back here, peeking out from the middle of all those old, old names, you can see it: a door that will not stay shut, and a homecoming already on its way.