The Mass as a Do-Over during which the choice presented to Adam and Eve is now presented to us. Adam and Eve bungled it! Will we?
The story of Adam and Eve is viewed by many as a child’s fairy tale with little or no relevance to us today. Its lesson is judged too simple and, hence, too well-understood, to deserve any further serious contemplation. It is taken for granted. Few sermons are preached about it. Yet, the story of Adam and Eve is the sine qua non to an understanding of God's plan for our salvation.
The life that God gave to Adam and Eve was not inert. It was rich with hungers and thirsts. Their hungers and thirsts needed satisfying. God, being a kind father not a sadistic torturer, appreciated their hungers and thirsts and provided additional gifts to satisfy them. But we are seldom content with what we have even if what we have are gifts from God. The prospect of something more or something else is a temptation we find hard to resist. This is our strength and our weakness. So when the serpent offered Adam and Eve a promise (not even a gift), Adam and Eve abandoned the bird in the hand for the promised two in the bush.
Now, what if a second chance was available to Adam and Eve -- a do-over? What if they had an opportunity to undo the greatest mistake that man has ever made - to fix what was broken? Life allows us few do-overs. Seldom can we reach into our past and erase our mistakes. But what if Adam and Eve could? Would they repeat their folly? Would they make the same mistake twice? Forget, for the moment, Adam and Eve. Instead, put yourself in their place. Would you repeat their mistake? Are you any better than they were? Would you choose to satisfy your hungers and thirsts with gifts from God or would you too choose the serpent’s? A silly question, right? If the choice of Adam and Eve belonged to you, you would stick with God and shun the serpent. Or would you?
The same hungers and thirsts that drove Adam and Eve still drive us. Our human nature did not disappear with the disappearance of Eden but, more importantly, neither did the nature of God. God is still a kind father not a sadistic torturer. Moreover, God has not forgotten that He created us with hungers and thirsts that crave satisfaction. And still God offers us gifts to satisfy them!
Adam and Eve had put us in a dangerous predicament. Like children, Adam and Eve had run away from home -- and they took us with them. Fortunately, God still loves us, misses us and wants us to come back home. Therefore, two millenniums and twelve years ago, God tossed us who are drowning in the rough and stormy seas of godlessness a life preserver and is ready to pull us to safety. Jesus, the Son of God is the life preserver of salvation. Our salvation is at hand! It is ours to reach out and grab.
But we, like Thomas (John 20:25-29), doubt. We are unsure whether or not God loves us, misses and wants us to come home to live our lives in abundant and eternal happiness with God our Father and His family. But God, being good and merciful, understands our doubts and wants to eliminate them. Therefore, He sent His son to tell us He loves us. Thus, the truth that God loves us is not coming from some ordinary person whose credibility is doubtful. It comes from the very mouth of God Himself. This is reason enough to believe. Yet, God did more than merely tell us the truth. He gave us His own personal guarantees of the truth.
The first guarantee God gave us is the passion and death of His Son on the Cross. Like wolves we welcomed the gentle Lamb of God (Matthew 10:16). Growling, we sank our fangs into Him; snarling, we gnawed on His bones; slobbering, we chewed on His flesh; we ripped life itself from His mortal body, howling in triumph (Isaiah 50:6). Yet, despite this, His love for us never wavered. (Proverbs 24:10). Its ardor never cooled. We did not dislodge it. We did not break it. We did not reduce it. We did not strip Him of it. We did not change it. His love for us is absolute.
The second guarantee is the forgiveness that followed the passion and death of His Son on the Cross. God became the lamb (John 1:29); we became the butchers. The butchers tortured, killed and carved up the lamb. And the lamb forgave the butchers. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34)"
God loves us. This is the truth. God sent his Son to tell us the truth and give us God's personal guarantees of the truth. If these are not reasons enough to believe that God loves us, misses us and wants us to come home to live our lives in eternal and abundant happiness with Him and His family, then nothing will be enough. The Son's voluntary acceptance of suffering and the forgiveness that followed are unmistakeable tokens of love. Irrefutable. Undeniable.
But our memories are short. God does not want us to ever forget that He loves us, To enable us to remember, God has given us a perpetual reminder of His love.
When Jesus had given everything that a Man could give including life itself, a bang went forth bigger than the big bang at the creation of the world. At this instant, Jesus had conquered death and death was transformed into life. In Eden, the tree of life was forbidden to us (Genesis 3:22-24). On Calvary, Jesus, the Son of God, became the tree of life. Moreover, His fruit He so ardently desires to share with us (Revelation 2:7). On Calvary, the taking of His body and His blood led to His death. Now, the taking of His body and His blood leads to life - life eternal and life in abundance! To share the fruit of the tree of life, God established the Mass (Matthew 26:26-28). At Mass, in the liturgy of the Eucharist, God offers us the fruit of the tree of life. The body and the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, is offered to us so we can have eternal life and enjoy a most exquisite communion between Him and us. This is the holy mystery. This is why we go to Mass. This is what it means when it is said that God turned the world on its head.
Paradise on earth for man is reestablished by Jesus in the Mass. The Eden that died with the sin of Adam and Eve was resurrected by the passion and death of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and is reborn in the Mass. To Mass, we bring our hungers and thirsts. There, God, our Father, offers us the gift of his Son, Jesus, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, as fuel for our souls. No traveler on any journey can go fast or get far without food and drink including a traveler on the road home to a life of happiness with God. Once again we can satisfy our hungers and thirsts with food and drink from God.
Why go to Mass? We go to Mass because there we get our second chance -- our do-over. At Mass, we get to set things right. By taking the gift of the Eucharist that God our Father is offering, we let God satisfy our hungers and thirsts. This was how Eden was designed to work before we broke it. We do at Mass what Adam and Eve failed to do in Eden. We “erase” their mistake. We renew our baptismal promise and reject the Serpent and all his works. The reception of the Eucharist is both a pledge of allegiance and an act of allegiance to God. How simple it is! All we need to do is accept God’s gifts and, perhaps, afterwards, if we are so moved, say thank you. The passion and death of Jesus has bought us a do-over -- a second chance. We get to exercise it at Mass. By recognizing the beautiful symmetry between the Mass,the passion and death on the cross of Jesus, our Savior, and the paradise that was on earth in Eden, we become aware that the choice that belonged to Adam and Eve now belongs to us. We bungle it only by not going to Mass!
