Mothers Group Reflection #37: Advent Reflection Week 2: The Fruit of Our Ways

As we continue through our Advent journey, this week we are invited to meditate on the idea of repentance, which brings the peace we generally associate with this particular week in our Advent devotions. If you also keep an Advent wreath in your home, we are invited to light the second purple candle, reminding us again of the need to prepare our hearts to receive Jesus, both as we recall His birth and again with His second coming.

The longer I am a Christian, the more I am convinced that the only reason we ever sin against God or others is that we truly do not understand God’s character and trust Him as a result. We could not so easily be swayed toward sin if we truly believed each day that He is only and ever FOR us in all that we do, and in all that He allows to happen to us. Today, I look back to the story of the first sin in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. The first thing I notice is that the serpent begins to tempt Eve by saying, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” He begins with a question about what God had commanded of her, to which she replies with only a half truth. God had told her, back in Genesis 2:17, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or she would die. Yet, when she replies to the serpent, she adds that she is not to even touch it or she will die. Knowing what God truly commands of us is so critical, or we can quickly justify things in our minds or even make them much harder than they were ever meant to be. It’s no wonder the Israelites later added hundreds of laws to the 10 commandments. It seems this started early.

The serpent goes on to question God’s directive, causing doubt to brew within her, “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 bad.” Eve allowed herself to be seduced by this message as Adam stood near. Not only did Adam do nothing to protect her, but he ate some as well, when it was offered to him. They did receive knowledge, but not the kind we ever want to experience. By this act, they obtained knowledge of sin, of turning their hearts from God and each other and they felt shame, to the point that they hid themselves. They were trying to cover their nakedness, which had been perfectly fine only moments before. They realized the potential to use or be used, and they felt exposed by their vulnerability and nakedness, because in this new world they had ushered in, these things could be exploited in ways that would harm them. Then, they covered the very part of themselves that was intended by God to bring life into the world. And now, this beautiful transmission of life would be tainted by original sin.

For a better explanation of what happens next, I turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

CCC397: Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

CCC398: In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God,” but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God.”

CCC399: Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of the first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image – that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.

CCC400: The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay.” Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground,” for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.

Pretty bleak news if that was the end of the story. Thanks be to God it is not! “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16 NAB). When asked by those he spoke to on the day of Pentecost, those who were cut to the heart by the realization of their sins against God, “What are we to do, my brothers?”, St. Peter the Apostle responded, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit” (Acts 2: 37-38 NAB).

What we do with our lives matters. A lot. We are called to live in repentance of our sins, not because God is the is huge taskmaster in heaven, a police officer in the sky looking over our shoulder trying to catch us in whatever sin we may have committed, but because we harm the greatest love relationship known to mankind every time we choose our own will over His. We can not claim to be in relationship with Him and pick and choose which of His commands to follow because it’s easier for us right now. And when we only see such a tiny piece of the whole picture, how can we ever believe we know better than God in anything?

In John 12, Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me” (John 12: 44-50 NRSVCE).

The words that we will be judged by are life and truth. We all have truth written into the very fabric of our being. We are drawn to seek it wherever it leads us, unless we allow the messages of the world to deter us, or stubbornly decide to stay in what we have always known, just because it is more comfortable than learning or doing something new. Truth is uncomfortable sometimes. It can make us squirm when we realize maybe we didn’t have the whole story or we might have to change. But it is always worth the effort to seek it.

I close with one more thought about that fateful day in the Garden of Eden. From the very beginning, God was merciful. Even in the midst of that great sin, the willful turning away from God with all the knowledge of His goodness, untainted by sin, God clothed them. Then, in His great mercy, He kept them out of the Garden of Eden so that they might not then eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in such an awful state. God had a plan right from the start to bring about our salvation, and to right all the wrongs of our world one day (Genesis 3:20-24).

It is not enough to say we believe in God if we are not willing to live in the light of truth. This Advent, we are invited to return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to take ownership of the ways we have harmed our relationship with God and others and to put those things right again, to be reconciled with both God and His body of believers. I invite you to consider making time to attend one of the many penance services available throughout the diocese before Christmas.

So, how about you? Do you really trust that God is good? Or do you still cling somewhere to false ideas of His character? I am convinced that when we really know Him, if will be harder and harder to choose sin because we will feel such a great desire to please Him, out of sheer gratitude and deep love. But do you really trust Him to provide for you in each circumstance of your life or do you still hang on somewhere to control “just in case” He doesn’t come through? I invite you to release all that you are holding onto today into His merciful and loving hands. What He can do with that sacrifice is beyond all telling!