Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?"
And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you 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, 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 themselves aprons.
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When Adam and Eve were in paradise, they had no reason to hope. They were living in a perfect reality and had complete trust and communion with God. It was only after their sin that they had reason to hope. This is interesting because hope is the only theological virtue in which this is the case. Love and faith were already present in Eden. And it's strange because, at times, it almost seems plausible that we could attain a state in which hope was no longer necessary as a result of chaos being eliminated; however, that would hint to perfection, the state of Adam and Eve before the fall, and we know that we cannot get back to that way of life. Now that sin has been introduced it will never leave until the second coming and therefore, chaos, along with hope, will always be present.
ReplyDeleteSo this all must mean that hope is the result of our salvation, not of our fallen state (which is what I had originally thought). Hope is placed among the theological virtues because it is a result of the love that God has for us and his call for us to have faith in him. It is the completion of the trinity of these virtues. It is interesting how God uses hope to counteract all of the evils which have been introduced to the world, pain, suffering, loss, etc. Hope is what allows evil to not seem so bad, and hope is what allows Satan never to win because as God’s people we will always have hope in the resurrection if we so choose. We will always have hope in a better future. God allows us to turn things around in our minds all the time through this one simple word, hope.
Now what does this mean in the scheme of our personal lives today? We obviously are not going to just decide to hope in Christ and then all of the sudden our problems will just vanish. Hope simply gives us the motivation to deal with the problems that arise in our lives. The part that discourages me is that there will always be problems. Now that fact is a result of our fallen state. At first this constant state of perpetual drama seems to be quite overwhelming and may even make one question the point in living, but once you examine the truth behind this fact you can see why drama, chaos, whatever you want to call it, is necessary in our lives.
The times in which we are troubled are usually accompanied with some feelings of loneliness. We could describe these times as our personal “deserts” and there is no greater part of the liturgical year to compare to a desert than Lent. The great part about these deserts, about Lent, is that, during these difficult times, the pain and evil in our lives and in the world present us with an opportunity to grow, a chance to use introspection and to hopefully grow as a result of what we find. In these times, we will be able to see our weaknesses most clearly and from there we have the choice to either succumb to our weaknesses or learn from them and change what needs to be changed. We are given a chance to be renewed, to grow and to develop into a person more and more like the person God wants us to be. Through our continual examination of self, we will change ourselves in order to become closer to attaining the promise of our hope, the promise that, one day, all the pain will go away, and hope will be a part of the past, and eternal life will be our unending present.
Olivia,
ReplyDeletethat was ridiculously beautiful.
no wonder you're studying writing. (at least i think you are studying writing)
Is that the thing you wrote during advent?
ReplyDeleteyeah but i changed it a little, so it wasn't ridiculously long; hence, why it doesn't flow as well. so if anyone wants the full version, it's on my FB under notes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Brian. I am studying writing :)
I love how it fits so well w/ both advent and Lent...
ReplyDeleteLove it.