God promises salvation from the very beginning.
Today’s first reading recounts the first and greatest tragedy – our first parents’ first sin. Breaking trust with God, they lost trust with each other, destroyed harmony with creation, and lost even the sense of being at home in their own skin.
If that story sounds familiar, it is. Open the papers today, and read the unfolding of the story of sin and all its effects. Temptation promises everything, and it delivers nothing but death and destruction.
But when we let God show back up in the story, he immediately sets us back on a path to healing. He calls us to account, to take responsibility for our actions, and in doing so, wakes up our conscience. “Where are you?” “Who told you that you were naked?” “Why did you do such a thing?” God lets us tell the story of our brokenness, but then promises salvation.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” God does not leave man and woman under the influence of the lying tempter. He puts them back on their feet, restoring their dignity and giving them the strength to take the next good step – beginning with silencing the tempter and listening again to God.
Some translations of this verse describe the Woman crushing the serpent’s head – hence the images of the Virgin Mary, the Woman of Revelation 12:1, with the moon under her feet, stepping on the serpent. But of course it his her Offspring who truly defeats the lying serpent once and for all on the Cross.
While the first Adam and Eve were disobedient and lost friendship with God, the obedience of Mary, the New Eve, opens the way for the coming of Christ, the New Adam, who restores us to all that had been lost and leads us to a glory greater than our first parents enjoyed before the Fall.
So don’t be deceived by the enemy, or discouraged and frightened by the lingering effects of sin in your life or in our world.
God promised salvation from the very beginning, and he never takes back his promise. Jesus restores us to our dignity as children of our heavenly Father, giving us something even greater than friendship with God – a share in his very life. “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:25)
-Fr. Tom
