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(Audio)
But the serpent said to the woman:
“You certainly will not die!
No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”
Who do we believe? Do we believe the one who calls God a liar and insinuates that he does not have our interests at heart? Do we believe the serpent when he tells us that God is selfishly keeping his power to himself? Or do we simply take God at his word, that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is off-limits for us? Do we insist on becoming arbiters of good and evil ourselves, of assessing each law with our own understanding as the final judge? Or do we let God be God? Let us trust the one from whom all goodness and all being comes, the one from whom we ourselves receive the breath of life. Let us trust that the goodness of created things can only be discovered when we see them in the light of their creator, rather than imagining ourselves as their final end and purpose.
Out of the ground the LORD God made various trees grow
that were delightful to look at and good for food,
with the tree of life in the middle of the garden
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam and Eve could have resisted the fear and doubt that the serpent provoked. They could have fulfilled their obligation to guard the garden (see Genesis 2:15) and cast the liar out. But they did not. Become of that choice paradise was lost, the gift of life that Adam and Eve were meant to pass on to their descendants was changed to a curse of sin and death.
But death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over those who did not sin
after the pattern of the trespass of Adam,
who is the type of the one who was to come.
After the choice to move away God it was not possible to bridge the gap of infinite divide between creature on our side. Only God could bridge that gap.
For if, by the transgression of the one,
death came to reign through that one,
how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace
and of the gift of justification
come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.
We see Jesus in the desert actively undoing all of the damage our disobedience.
“Get away, Satan!
It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve.”
In place of our weakness and disobedience Jesus obeys the will of the Father. Where we did not trust that the Father had our best interests at heart Jesus maintained an absolute trust that the Father willed nothing but his good. We must now allow Jesus to manifest the power of his obedience in us through the Spirit he has given. We are united to the one who blazed this fearless path of trust. We are invited to follow that path and share in the victory.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
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