We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the Evil One.
(1 John 5:19)What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members?
(James 4:1)Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
…For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:16, 23)
It was once common understanding in the Christian West that the human race was under a curse.
We children of the Enlightenment can find that statement harsh or difficult to believe, but it is the starting point for God’s action in sending his Son to us.
One purpose of the story of the Garden, the Serpent, and the Fall is to explain why there is so much evil in the world.
We have been enveloped in a cosmic spiritual battle that involves God and angelic beings.
In Adam and Eve, humanity chose the wrong side of that fight.
The inevitable result of their choice to distance themselves from God, who is the source of all goodness and life, was to fall into darkness and death.
That fateful Fall has touched our race in two main ways.
First, it wounded our nature.
Our minds, created to run toward truth, grew darkened, and our wills, meant to lead us to goodness, became hardened.
As a result, there is a battle raging in the heart of each person.
By our creation in the image of God, we desire truth and goodness.
Due to the Fall, we have a tendency in the opposite direction.
As James says in the passage quoted above, our wars and conflicts have their origin in this battle within ourselves.
A second result of our rebellion against God is that it put us into the power of dark spiritual beings stronger than we.
Adam and Eve thought they could be free by separating themselves from God.
Instead, they became slaves.
The wages of our sin, as St. Paul notes, is death.
In his great goodness, God did not leave us in this miserable situation.
He came among us to free us from the power of the devil and to heal the wound in our nature.
Death no longer has ultimate power over us, the devil is no longer our master, and we can be transformed into creatures worthy of heaven.
All this is fantastically good news.
But the news is good only when we understand the bad news that preceded it.
If we don’t see the curse, we won’t see what it means to be freed from it.
If we see things rightly, the Fall and its consequences do not bring sadness or discouragement.
Rather, they are the soil of joy and hope.
People with a deadly illness are glad when they find a physician who can heal them.
But if they pretend that there is nothing wrong, they become perplexed and discouraged with themselves and their world.
We Christians have been given the grace to be aware of our state.
We know we are sick, but we also know that we have a physician who can heal all our wounds.
We aren’t overwhelmed by the darkness we see in ourselves or in our world.
We understand its cause, and we know its solution.
So let us remember, brothers, that Jesus promised us that we would have trouble in this world.
But he also told us to be of good cheer.
He has overcome the darkness of the world, and we belong to him.
