8 December 2016 - mother of the living

 

[ Today's Readings ]

 he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world

Things seem to go horribly wrong with God's plan when man succumbs to the temptation of the serpent and eats the forbidden fruit. But God always has a plan.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.

When Eve is called mother of all the living she is called this more as foreshadowing for God's ultimate plan than for what she herself is. She is meant to be the mother of all the living but surrenders the privilege and instead becomes the mother of a spiritually dead world. She bears the name mother of all the living precisely so that when it is given to the one who truly deserves it we can see how fitting, appropriate, beautiful and necessary it is. There is not much enmity between Eve, her seed, and the serpent. But when God places enmity between the true mother of the living and her seed we see that God's plan was never thwarted. It comes to pass in the fullness of time. Finally we realize the depth of our need. Finally we realize how empty and impossible life and enmity with evil are apart from God. Only by his grace can these things by ours.

From Eve we learn that God often first allows us to experience our need before he fulfills it. From Mary we learn that when he fulfills our needs he does so in ways greater than we can even imagine.

He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.

We learn that even after a very long time nothing is impossible for God. For our particular need we may have to wait for the fullness of time. But even so, God is always worth the wait.

Let us therefore realize how much we need Jesus. We are the children of the dead without him. But if we wait for him we see that in the fullness of time he speaks to us from his cross. He gives us Mary as our mother. He sets things right in a way we could not even guess. We are children of the living in a way that is so much more than mere mortal life. We are made partakers of very life of God! Even after so long singing the sorrowful songs of earth we are given the new song of the angels of heaven to sing.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds.