Fourth of Advent Year A
December 2007
The Bible is a tapestry made up of many different strands. Each of these strands is integral to the whole. Each of these strands is a different view or understanding or theology of God and Human Beings and the relationship between them.
I give you one view today. This world is an enemy occupied world. This is self evident from the universality of suffering, sickness and above all death.
At Creation God looked on all He had made and indeed it was very good. You cannot look on the world today and say that indeed it is very good. Some thing or somebody has interfered with God’s creation. Who is responsible for this?
The Bible suggests that before God created the world He created other very powerful beings which are called Angels. These Angels, just like us human beings, were not only given being, life and intelligence but also, free will. Freedom to do or not do, as they please. Like us human beings, some of these Angels used their gift of free will to oppose God - to do evil - to interfere with God’s creation. God respects all his creatures and does not revoke his gifts. Therefore we human beings as well as the rebellious Angels (we call them Satan or the Devil or the Evil One etc.) are free to reek havoc with God’s creation whenever we wish.
So God had to rectify matters without revoking his gift of free will.
To do this God became a human being and subjected himself to the very worst that Satan and human beings could do to him. For a time it seemed that the forces of evil had won and God had died. And then came the Resurrection. God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, took on Evil’s most powerful weapon - death, and vanquished it completely by rising victorious from death into Eternal Life. Immediately there was a boundary established beyond which the forces if evil, both satanic and human, could not operate. This boundary is death. Beyond this boundary the forces of evil are now helpless.
At this time we are about to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth - the Lamb of God who defeated Satan, sin and death. So let us rejoice.