The one that I found the most interesting was Cain and Abel. This is a classic story of two sons who try and please God. One gets favor and the other gets jealous. This happens constantly across the world. There were two things that caught my eye. The first was that
The second thing that caught my attention is how God knows Cain killed Abel. I would have guessed the wrath of God (especially OT) would have meant death for Cain. God kills later in the Noah story is going to "wipe the slate clean" with the a flood because of wickedness and kill all of those who have not found favor. Why not Cain too?
It could be as simple as showing forgiveness. Maybe the proper punishment was to have Abel get the revenge. Abel is in the ground and God says that the land will not be harvestable for him. None of these seemed to add up for me as I thought about it.
Something Jesus said struck me just now. When Jesus cries out on the cross "My God why have you forsaken me" it is often attributed to the fact that Jesus has taken the sins upon him and He is separated from God's presences.
This is the punishment God gives Cain. I was initially surprised at Cain's response of essentially "Anything but that!" Now thinking about Jesus' response it makes sense. It ends up leaving me thinking about how many of us today are as separated from Gods presence. Maybe we are like crabs who can be slowly boiled to death if you raise the temperature slowly. They do not struggle and just take the heat. This thought scares me. Would I notice myself being boiled? Would I recognize the lack of God's presence? Am I that in love with God that that would be the biggest punishment for me?
I hope that I can get to a point where Death is a gift of going home to God and exile from God is the biggest punishment I could receive.
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