1st Sunday of Lent
The world of magic deals in 'sleight-of-hand', illusion, trickery. The mysterious invites us into the heart of reality, the magical tempts us to bypass reality by giving us the illusion that we are in control of it.
We have a lovely example of magic in today's gospel extract. Jesus is in the desert. He has fasted for a very lengthy period and, as anyone who has 'done' Lough Derg will tell you, the human psyche most susceptible to illusion and suggestion in the latter stages of the fasting experience. Jesus is no different. In the hour of his greatest vulnerability, this weaver of illusions appears at his elbow, and begins to play tricks with his brain: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to turn into bread." In other words: "You are the Son of God, at heart a Great Magician, do your trick now and turn it to your own advantage." But Jesus is alert to his charm and his charms; he recognises the illusion for what it is: "Man does not live on bread alone." A more profound truth has never passed the lips of any man.
Paul is in no doubt but that Man is a fallen creature. It sounds 'hard-line' and somewhat cruel. However, I think that nothing is so cruel as the illusion that man is not a fallen creature; and that few things are more merciful than the truth that we are fallen. When you go to a christening, it may shock you to discover some of the language used in ceremony. "Almighty God, you sent your son to cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil, to rescue man from the kingdom of darkness." And yet that belief, properly understood, I would claim, is indispensable to all human happiness and maturity.
Of course, words can be terribly misleading. And few words are so utterly misleading as the words 'fallen' and 'sin' in this context. We will start with the word 'fallen'. If I am professor nuclear physics this week, and an infant supervisor in a crèche next week, you could speak of my decline and fall. Man has not fallen in this sense. He didn't begin great, and later become miserable and wicked. If people once believed that, (the story of the Garden of Eden,) as literal history we know now that that is not the way to read that story. We are dealing here with poetry, not history. And, like all good poetry, Genesis is profoundly true, but within its own terms and its own rules. So the fall is not a fall from a past condition. It is more like a falling short of a future condition.
Let me give an example. I have it in me, let us say, to be a great writer or a great painter. I feel somehow that I possess this outstanding ability. But, as yet, haven't been able to actualise it. I haven't been able to give to my writing all I've got. I feel that I could write better than I do, but as yet I can't. This isn't my fault. Perhaps I haven't the leisure time required. Or the discipline? It's just how things are at the moment. One day, I hope, I shall be able to give full expression to my literary potentialities. Until that day comes, however, I shall continue to fall short of what I fully am.
Now it is in this sense that man is fallen. Man has innate genius (they call it the image of God), a genius for absolute generosity which is the essence of goodness. But, as yet, man cannot fully actualise this genius. He cannot give himself as he knows he has it in him to give himself. This is not his fault. He was born that way. But, none the less, it makes him fall short of his full stature. He is fallen from what in God's Providence he one day will be.
Through the teaching on Original Sin, the Christian churches state that from the moment of our conception and birth we enter into a state of affairs which is mixed up, a state of affairs which is, to a large extent, out of joint.
Why this is so, we don't know. We guess and grapple at it by myths involving figures like Satan, or a serpent, or fallen angels. The reason why is hidden from us. But the fact itself stares us in the face everywhere, every day. If I take this truth on board, that I was born fallen and in sin, I don't hate myself for being as mediocre as I am, since I realise that it is not my fault. And this releases my energies and enables me to grow into maturity and happiness.
But the fall, and original sin, is only half the story. In fact, because of Easter, it is not even half the story. It is merely a preface to the Easter story of Christ's triumph over sin and death. But he didn't triumph magically, by bypassing reality. He triumphed through taking on the full depravity and pain of sin and death. There will be no resurrection without suffering and death. There will be no Easter without Lent. Only magicians have victory without struggle. But it's an illusion.