For many people the events of Holy Week are mysterious in a wholly confusing way. What in the world does a man dying on a cross 2000 years ago have to do with us? they ask. This image helps us know where to begin. It portrays the first death in the Bible, from Genesis 3:8-11, in which Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, kills his brother Abel out of spite. It is from this story that we get the saying,”Am I my brother’s keeper?” as Cain denies any knowledge of his slain brother’s whereabouts. His tone is not unlike his father Adam’s when he tries to shake of culpability for eating the forbidden fruit by blaming not only Eve, but God for sending her to him. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
From that moment on, a cycle of violence, selfishness, retaliation, and death became a force in the family tree of all humanity for which we could never make amends. Until Him.
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his… The death he died, he died to sin, once, for all.” (Romans 6: 5 & 10)
Heather Choate Davis 
Great post! You should be a preacher!