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Sunday 1 December

The Fall

By Geoff Maitland

Genesis 3.1-14

Here we have the story of how, God having created humankind in his own image and innocent of sin and shame, the first man and woman on earthcome face to face with temptation.  They had been blessed by God, encouraged to be fruitful and to multiply, to have dominion over all the earth and use its resources for their sustenance -  but with a clear red line to avoid taking nourishment from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The prospect of succulent food and ofbecoming as wise as God in knowing about good and evil, and so taking control themselves, was too much for them. Discovering their own free will, from that moment of weakness and putting their own will and interests ahead of God’s and of others, their innocence was lost and humankind was forever exposed to sin, journeying through life driven by self-interest rather than guided by the will of God.

Free will inevitably leads to times when we put our needs and desires, rather than God, at the centre of our lives, and we fall into sin.  We are all flawed human beings; even new-born babies arriving into our world in all innocence are quickly exposed to the choices of free will which will inevitably lead to sin, no matter how caring and loving the family environment – the world is a cruel and tempting place. Yet God did not abandon Adam and Eve, and all of us, to sin in the garden of life.  He sent into our world one innocent baby, his Son, free from sin, whose mission was the redemption of our sins through sacrificing his life for the atonement of all humankind.  It is to the birth of that child, our Redeemer from The Fall, that our journey through Advent is leading us.  God calls us to use our free will to accept him, through his Son, to replace our selfishness and self-interest at the centre of our lives and be redeemed through Jesus our Saviour, no matter how much we stumble and fall again.

In his epic poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton recounted the quest of Satan to corrupt God’s world and all humankind and the experiences of Adam and Eve following The Fall.As God banishes them from the Garden, Milton uses the Archangel Michael as God’s messenger to show Adam a vision of what will occur in humanity’s future so as to lessen his despair. He describes long stretches of Old Testament history before revealing the pinnacle of all human history, the incarnation of God’s Son. Through his love and humility as a man, dying for the sins of all humans (or, symbolically, Adam’s sin that infected all other humans) and his resurrection, Jesus would fulfill God’s proper justice, defeat the power of death and begin to restore humanity to its proper obedience and order.  Adam’s gloom is transformed:

“Greatly-instructed I shall hence depart;

Greatly in peace of thought;…

Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best,

… with good

Still overcoming evil, and by small

Accomplishing great things, by things deemed weak

Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise

By simply meek: that suffering for truth’s sake

Is fortitude to highest victory,

And, to the faithful, death the gate of life;…

And they leave with the reassurance of Michael that:

“Then wilt thou not be loth

To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

A Paradise within thee, happier far.”

This idea that our fall into sin can ultimately he happy or fortunate, because being saved by Christ’s death is better for us than our condition before the fall – redemption is better than perfection – is also encapsulated in George Herbert’s shape poem ‘Easter Wings’.  Despite, or because of, The Fall, Lord God let me rise even higher from my own sin with you.

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,                                

Decaying more and more,                               

Till he became                                          

Most poore:                           

With thee                               

O let me rise                                          

As larks, harmoniously,                                       

And sing this day thy victories:                                   

Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

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Genesis 3.1-14

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’

The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’

But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’

He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’

The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’

Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’

The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go,  and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.