They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

Gaylord Opryland waterfall provides pleasant white noise against the stressful sounds of life.

Perhaps you are familiar with the line, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," from the Joni Mitchell song, "Big Yellow Taxi." Counting Crows. Bob Dylan, and Amy Grant have all covered the song.

The song is a phenomenal reminder that things change, and not always for the better.

On Nov. 29, 1969, Mitchell introduced the song this way, "Two weekends ago I went to Hawaii. It was my first time there and I was only there for two days which was kind of a bummer, I wish I could’ve really seen more of the island and I arrived there at 11 o’clock at night and the next morning I ran to the window and threw back the curtains and sure enough, there it was, paradise, you know, green, lush hills, old Sugarloaf Mountain up there, white birds flying low, Myna birds all over the place, and, right in the middle of it all, was a big parking lot." (Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi - lyrics)

It is often a shock to realize that things are not always what they seem. Our high school band once marched in a parade at Walt Disney World, and we got a "backstage tour." Not a formal tour, but one of necessity that allowed us to access places that park visitors do not. The things we saw were less than magical - not bad, but certainly not the carefully curated photo opportunities that visitors see. I don't know what I expected, but we didn't encounter the seven dwarves on their way to work.

I can imagine Joni Mitchell running to her hotel window to gaze at the Hawaiian paradise, only to see a big parking lot, front and center - a buzzkill to her anticipation.

Mitchell used this imagery and energy to reflect on human experience and write a song with staying power.

The chorus is powerful.

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

I wonder if this is how the first man and the first woman felt when they were removed from the Garden of Eden.

Through no effort or planning of their own, Adam and Eve took their first breaths in a stunning paradise, carefully planted with vegetation, fruit trees of all kinds, home to animals and a natural source of water. There were no droughts, floods, or death in this garden.

Paradise, right? There was so much in the garden for the man and woman to enjoy.

I'm not sure how long they lived in the garden, but it didn't last. They found their own way to pave paradise and put up a parking lot, in a manner of speaking.

The first two chapters of Genesis use sweeping language to describe the creativity and intentionality of God's creative work. In six days, God created and put order to light, darkness, the sky, land, seas and vegetation, celestial bodies, sea creatures, birds, land animals, and humans.

Genesis 2:7-9,15-21, 18-23, NLT

"Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person. [8] Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. [9] The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground-trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

" [15] The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. [16] But the LORD God warned him, "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden- [17] except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die."

"[18] Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him." [21] So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening. [22] Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. [23] "At last!" the man exclaimed. "This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken from 'man.'"

Paradise. Work that allowed the first humans to work cooperatively with God and with each other. No selfishness, or jealousy, or fear. A dream, right?

All they had to do was stay away from one tree. But they couldn't.

Genesis 3:1, NLT

"The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"

As this encounter unfolds, Eve eats the fruit they were instructed by God to not eat. Adam eats the fruit. I've heard sermons where the pastor calls the fruit an apple. But a careful reading of scripture says "fruit" rather than apple.

Once the fruit is eaten, paradise is about to be paved.

In the third chapter of Genesis, the LORD God came to the garden to walk about. God confronted Adam and Eve about what they had done, and the man blamed the woman, and the woman blamed the serpent. They even found a way to blame God.

That's when paradise was paved. That's when the curse came.

Genesis 3:14-19, NLT

"Then the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. [15] And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel." [16] Then he said to the woman, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you. " [17] And to the man he said, "Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. [18] It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. [19] By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return."

For years I have heard sermons and read papers and articles written about the curse. When people talk about the curse, they nearly always in the same breath talk about God's order in creation, meaning the woman is subordinate to the man. It's right there, they say, right in scripture. "Then he said to the woman ... you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you. " (Genesis 3:16, NLT)

This one line has been used in debating everything from women preaching, to biblical manhood and womanhood, to feminism, to the Trad Wife movement, to whether women should work outside of the home, vote, manage money, and other issues facing us in 2026.

Did God put us under a curse that we must continue to live under? Or did God explain the natural consequences for their sin? These questions have been debated for centuries.

One source says this: "It is clear that God did pronounce a curse. He cursed the serpent (vs 14) and the ground (vs 17). But the Bible never says that he cursed Adam or Eve. Some do say that they were cursed but to do so you are reading something into the text that it does not specifically say. Certainly there was a punishment or consequence for their sin which would totally affect all areas of their lives ... So, I guess the moral of the story is that God was saying that the effects of the fall would be felt everywhere. In creation itself (which still groans longing to be free - Rom 8:22), in the toil and suffering that life would now present to both man and woman, in personal relationships between one another where control and desire would replace harmony and self sacrifice. Everything is messed up." (Did God curse Adam and Eve? Was there a curse on all creation?)

We see this in John 11. Jesus' friend, Lazarus, has died and is buried. Lazarus' two sisters are grieved and distraught. They are half mad at Jesus, because they believe that if Jesus had been there, he would have healed their brother. They had seen Jesus do all kinds of miraculous work to heal and restore. They had faith that he could release their brother from the curse of death.

We come to this place in the account.

John 11:33-34,36-37 NLT

"When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. [34] "Where have you put him?" he asked them. They told him, "Lord, come and see."

"[36] The people who were standing nearby said, "See how much he loved him!" [37] But some said, "This man healed a blind man. Couldn't he have kept Lazarus from dying?"

Jesus experienced a deep anger. He was deeply troubled. Then Jesus wept.

Jesus wept over the brokenness of the curse – the division, hatred, sickness, and death that has fractured God’s original, beautiful design.

But Jesus didn’t come to just weep. Jesus came to undo this curse.

Genesis 3:15, NLT

"And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

This is the first mention of Jesus, who will come to defeat Satan. And this is what He has done.

Galatians 3:13-14, NLT

“But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." [14] Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.”

On the cross, Jesus paid our sin debt and broke the curse. Believers are not defined by the curse of Genesis 3. In Christ, the curse is no longer our identity, and it no longer rules our relationships or our future.

2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

Just as Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, Jesus calls each of us to step out of our tombs of division, hatred, violence, dominance, selfishness, sexism, racism – all the "isms" – and live like people who have been rescued and made new.

Jesus has raised us, restored us, and released us from the curse.

Joni Mitchell later wrote this about her song: "I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart ... this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song. When it first came out, it was a regional hit in Hawaii because people there realized their paradise was being chewed up. It took 20 years for that song to sink in to people most other places. That is a powerful little song because there have been cases in a couple of cities of parking lots being torn up and turned into parks because of it.” (Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi - lyrics)

The parking lot might be a blight on paradise, but sin is a blight on God's original plan for creation. Consider what it says in Genesis: "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground." (Genesis 1:26, NLT)

Our and us are plural - not singular. God was not working alone, above Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

John 1:1-3, NLT

"In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] He existed in the beginning with God. [3] God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him."

In creation there is cooperation. God the Father is the source, Jesus the Son is the agent, and the Spirit is the active power. God didn’t subordinate Jesus and Jesus didn’t subordinate the Holy Spirit. They worked together.

This is God's design - that we all work cooperatively with Him and with each other. We are not meant to struggle against one another for power and dominance or to create ways to subjugate each other.

Mitchell's song has prompted grassroots movements to tear up parking lots and plant parks. Isn't that a lovely thought? Removing concrete from the concrete jungles and planting something with green life for people to enjoy.

Jesus has done far more for us than tearing up parking lots and planting parks. Jesus has reversed the curse of Genesis 3. Jesus has raised us from the death of sin. Jesus has restored us to intimacy and friendship with God. And Jesus has released us to go out into His world to bring His light, love, and life to as many people and circumstances as we can.

John 10:10, NLT

"The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life."