Cain beamed, pleased with the harvest he had painstakingly toiled over. He couldn't imagine the "good old days" his parents often talked about. Back then, the only work they did was to name the animals. Food grew abundantly everywhere without any need for tilling the soil or any hard labour whatsoever. Life was easy. They just plucked and ate whatever they liked, whenever they felt like it. It sounded like a figment of their overactive imagination.
He picked a basket of fresh produce and carried it down the path.
"Hey bro," came an all too sunny voice accompanied by a way too bright smile. His brother, with a pristine white lamb baa-ing over is shoulders caught up with him. "All ready for the sacrifice?"
His wide-eyed brother Abel was everyone's pet. Cain cringed and heaved his basket. "Yep."
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"It's not fair." Cain mumbled.
Abel's sacrifice was accepted but not his.
The Creator had gently but firmly said that if he does well, he'd be accepted but warned him that if doesn't, sin would lie at his door.
As Cain ruminated, his bitterness grew.
Envy.
The Creator's warnings were brushed. aside. Cain had enough. He made his choice.
"Hey bro!" Putting on his friendliest smile, Cain walked right up to his brother as he tended to his sheep.
"Cain!" Abel burst into a dazzling smile. "You're not mad at me anymore?" Waves of relief flowed off Abel, delighted that his brother had gotten over his disappointment.
"Of course not. How could I stay mad at you?" He smiled as he hugged his brother... And plunged his hidden dagger through his back.
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"Where is Abel, your brother?"
Cain startled. He turned and stared defiantly in the direction of that all too familiar voice. "I don't know," he shrugged. "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Blood had seeped into the ground where Cain committed the deed. The deadly fruit of sin.
"What have you done? Your brother's blood cries to me from the ground."
Cain shuddered. Blood drained from his face. His bravado faded as the Creator's curse came upon him. The proud farmer was cursed to wander the earth as a fugitive.
He couldn't bear this punishment. "Every one who finds me will slay me," he pleaded.
In His mercy, the Creator promised a punishment seven times more severe on whoever slays Cain. As a warning to anyone who might kill Cain, He put a mark on him.
******* Notes
Inspired by:
Genesis 4
And
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
