March 9 Gen. 2:15-17, #:1-8, Mt. 4:1-11, Rom. 5
Why does human life seem determined to go wrong? What better time to address Sin that great opponent of Christian life and health than the first Sunday in Lent? What better time to address the depths of evil than the season that leads to the depth of the cross? Gen. 3 looks at the fundamental problem with human beings in a daring way.
Irenaeus, the first great theologian of the church in the second century, also saw the so called Fall of Adam and Eve to be rather a move from childlike innocence to the hard won experience of adulthood. Why do Adam and Eve fall from innocence? The emphasis on being naked and not ashamed involves some new sort of knowledge, if not wisdom.One: they were deceived.The talking serpent is called sly. We may also be in the midst of a pun fest here.In wishing to beocme enlighted, to have their eyes opened, they become blinded to our capacity for evil, for the good in themselves and others. Do they become wise, or merely crafty, as they make clothes for themselves? Second,they did wish to be like God,note how Gen. 11 enfolds the same theme. Some think that while the serpent spoke of wisdom, Eve and Adam were desirous of all knowledge, the omniscience of God.They could not accept creaturehood, and aspire to the awareness of good and evil or b perhaps omniscience, but there lies the path not of fuller life, but of death. Humans have a hard time with obeying a command of limitation
To be naked may be less a sign of innocence and more a sign of being much like animals. they eat of the tree of knowledge and what do they notice? They need clothes. Of course look at what we have done with the internet, an avenue for pornography and video of our pets.
Trible speaks of human nature being contaminated.So is the good, as it ccan be twisted into wrong ever so slightly.
Taken in isolation, Jesus was tested by good things, feeding, protection, and power.Note well Jesus passes the tests or trials or temptations and sues Scripture as his source. He was tempted three times while Eve and Adam faced but one test. As Paul said,Jjesus emptied himself of equality with God, so the temptation toward the divine was perhaps greater for Jesus than for Eve and Adam.In Romans Paul makes a kingdom of sin as children of Adam. In baptism, we are also children of christ, the new Adam.The kingdom of heaven is a new way in the world with the advent of Jesus Christ.They are worlds in collision.Irenaeus in the late second century wrote that Jesus was a recapitulation of God’s hopes for humanity. “ ..he "recapitulates" Adam, in whom all humanity can see itself, transforms him into a child of God and restores him to full communion with the Father. Through his brotherhood with us in flesh and blood, in life and death, Christ becomes "the head" of saved humanity... "Therefore, the full realization of the Creator's original plan emerges: that of a creation in which God and man, man and woman, humanity and nature are in harmony, in dialogue and in communion. . Jesus himself said he was the fulcrum and point of convergence of this saving plan.”
Temptation beckons so forcefully, while calls for virtue seem so weak and tinny.This year, I will not urge us to give up something for Lent, nor will I add to your long list of duties and ask you to pile on one more. I will ask that we all do some serious self-examination this Lenten season for our weak spots toward temptation, our strong points, and only then rely of god’s grace, god’s gift to reflect the name, Christian.
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