The past couple of weeks I have been working on original sin and the effects of the fall in our lives and in all of creation and am realizing how incredibly frustrating it is to have only a few minutes on Sunday morning to attempt to get that into the hearts and heads of those whom God has given me to teach and equip. The implications of that understanding of the world are staggering and yet I have only 20-25 minutes to try and explain it.
Everything that we think about the world should be influenced by that idea, that there is a terminal infection shared by all creation that keeps everything from being as it should be. Out of the chaos that was before creation emerged God's intentional universe where order and harmony were seen. Into that perfect world came sin and, mercifully, God didn't destroy creation, it bore a curse that keeps it from being perfect but not from testifying to His goodness in creating it.
In this week's Gospel reading, the birth of the twins Jacob and Esau, we see them struggling in their mother's womb for dominance, a struggle that will consume most of their lives. In Genesis 25 we see original sin beginning before they emerge into the world, it isn't an environmental issue, it is an issue of our nature, written into our DNA. That makes all the more amazing what we see in Luke 1 when the baby in Elizabeth's womb (John the Baptist) leaps within her as she greets Mary the mother of Jesus. Here we have no struggle for dominance, but recognition of God's will in the older giving way to the younger, as he would do his entire life, but with joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment