A Dark Face

Then Adam had sexual intercourse with Eve his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to a son, Cain (meaning "I have created"). For, as she said, "With God's help, I have created a man!" Her next child was his brother, Abel.

Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a farmer. At harvest time Cain brought the Lord a gift of his farm produce, and Abel brought the fatty cuts of meat from his best lambs, and presented them to the Lord. And the Lord acccepted Abel's offering, but not Cain's. This made Cain both dejected and very angry, and his face grew dark with fury.

"Why are you angry?" the Lord asked him. "Why is your face so dark with rage? It can be bright with joy if you will do what you should! But if you refuse to obey, watch out! Sin is waiting to attack you, longing to destroy you. But you can conquer it!"

One day Cain suggested to his brother, "Let's go out into the fields." And while they were together there, Cain attacked and killed his brother.

But afterwards the Lord asked Cain, "Where is your brother? Where is Abel?"

"How should I know?" Cain retorted. "Am I supposed to keep track of him wherever he goes?"

But the Lord said, "Your brother's blood calls to me from the ground. What have you done? You are hereby banished from this ground which you have defiled with your brother's blood. No longer will it yield crops for you, even if you toil on it forever! From now on you will be a fugitive and a tramp upon the earth, wandering from place to place."
Genesis 4:1-12 The Living Bible

People often draw attention to the sacrfice of others - or the lack thereof.

For example: "That car pulled out ahead of me and slowed me down. Couldn't he have sacrificed a few seconds so I wouldn't have been inconvenienced?"

Presumably the one who does not sacrifice is a selfish person and therefore a bad person.

... But Cain gave a gift of his fruits to the Lord.


Here is the puzzling aspect of the matter: nearly everyone sacrifices. Almost everyone has -at one moment or another- given up something good for what they considered to be something greater.

But is every offering pleasing to the Lord?


Consider Abel's sacrifice. The writer of Hebrews tells us:

By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
Hebrews 11:4 NIV

These two men willingly separated themselves from their gifts to God. There is no indication that anyone twisted their arms. Two gifts were given to God, but only one was pleasing to Him.

By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice.

The writer of Hebrews focuses not on what kind of thing these brothers did. The emphasis is placed squarely on the way they did that thing.

Abel sacrificed in a way that was pleasing to God. Cain sacrificed in a way that God did not accept.

Consider the case where two small daughters find two pennies on the ground. Their father notices and says to them, "I see you have found some money that belongs to me. Give them back to me."

Suppose the first girl says, "This money is yours to do with as you please. I am glad to return it to you." And the second girl says, "If this is the way you treat your own daughter, I do not want anything to do with your money. Take it back!".

Is it not clear that the two daughters are completely different people? The one daughter acts in a way that is pleasing to her father and the other daughter does not.

Yet, in such a case they both return the money.

In a procedural, clinical way of looking at God's response it is easy to be confused. Cain gave God the gift of his fruits. Check. He did exactly the same thing Abel did -on the outside.

The difference was in a place where no procedure could inspect or even comment ... the difference was in Cain's spirit, and it was Cain's spirit that God called into question.

Cain was going through the motions of his relationship with God. There was no Cain expressing his love before God. The love which Cain had toward God was locked far, far away in his heart. The farther away it went, the darker his face became.


God confronts Cain and says:

"Why is your face so dark with rage? It can be bright with joy if you will do what you should! But if you refuse to obey, watch out! Sin is waiting to attack you, longing to destroy you. But you can conquer it!"

What does it mean to be destroyed? The Bible says that after death we will be brought back to life again. We shall all continue in heaven or hell forever. So in what sense can someone be destroyed? Isn't Abel's life the one in danger?

And yet God tells Cain that sin is longing to destroy him.

The Apostle Paul once noted that if he gave all he possessed to the poor and surrendered his body to the flames -but did not have love- he would gain nothing. What is to be gained? He tells us in the earlier verse that if he has not love, he is nothing.

What does it mean to be nothing? For someone to be nothing? What does it mean to have no self?

Was Cain angry because God disapproved of his sacrifice? Or was it the case that Cain was angry because he sensed that he was beginning to lose his self? What can all the justifications and explanations amount to at the expense of losing one's self?


Very often a person will spend all their time trying to justify their behavior. Very few people hunger and thirst for living the life which needs no explanation.

When God confronts Cain again, Cain has a ready justification. In an attempt at shrewdness he replies that he cannot possibly be expected to track Abel everywhere he goes.

As human beings we are inclined to doubt anyone's behavior if they do not have a reason. And if they do have a justification for their actions we can accept it.

But love needs no explanation, no defense, no justification.

One time at work, a colleague said to me, "The law is meant to be practical and not to be fair." I took up the issue because I felt he was looking for an excuse to behave in an unjust way.

When I asked for an example he told me in anger, 'Do you think it is fair for you to have your beautiful wife?'

Although much could be said of the way desperate questions alienate us from ourselves -and the ways in which we have all been just like that wicked coworker- I will note instead that worldly legality has no knowledge of love's great happiness.

I gave him no defense in return. When I could not decide for myself why I had not I realized for myself that when two people truly love each other there is nothing left to be accounted.

All honest accounting, in truth, depends on the happiness of true love and not the other way around. Explanations, defenses, justifications are lacking and very much in need of love.

God told Cain earlier that if he had acted obediently, Cain's face could, "be bright with joy if you will do what you should!"

This is the facial expression which God does not concern Himself with confronting. Instead, Cain's disobedience lead to a darkened facial expression ... a facial expression which demanded to justify itself but never really could.


May we never be fooled (or fool ourselves) into thinking that our external acts of service to God are any substitute for true love and devotion.

May we never behave in such a way that we do not agree with.

May we seek to live in a way that needs no justification, and not in a way that constantly searches for justifications.

Amen!