The serpent said to Eve in the garden: “You will not die . . . your eyes will be opened and you will be like God” (Genesis 3:4-5) Half-truths are insidious. The two half-truths told by the serpent continue to lure us and fascinate us and shape us. We (understandably) look to avoid death and anything that goes with death (pain, suffering, heartache, grief) by ignoring death, denying death, minimizing death, celebrating death (just look at the skeletons and tombstones and ghosts plastered all over fences this week), controlling death and by doing so we think we are being like God. Well, perhaps in some ways we are, but there is a price to pay for trying to be like God. It’s a price we may be willing to pay, but it’s a price God is not willing to pay.