Second Leaflet for Advent 2012 – p. 4
Second leaflet for the Lectio Divina
Advent 2012
Adam, where are you? (Gen. 3:9)
God in search of the human person:
COMPASSION becomes announcement of Salvation
Entry into the Lectio
Advent is a time of waiting. An expectation that spans the history, an expectation aroused by God himself in his search of sinful humanity, with his “compassion” which announces salvation (proto-evangelium): the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15). The liturgy presents the reading of Genesis 3 on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, right in the heart of Advent. We shall accompany this first reading from Genesis, a passage from Revelation that gives us another view of Advent: the woman in birth pangs and the seven-headed dragon (Rev. 12:1- 6)
Let us invoke the Holy Spirit that he may awaken in us a sense of waiting, may dispose our heart to prayerful listening and make us capable of welcoming the Word like Mary, in the womb of our lives.
Come Holy Spirit, living communion of the Father and of the Son,
Come, you who spoke to the prophets,
and fecunded in the Virgin the Word.
Come in me and in every person Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Come open our eyes to the truth of our existence,
come open our heart to the tenderness of mutual love,
come and give rise from our inner most self the prayer of Jesus:
Abbà Father !
Listening to the Word (“truth”)
A. Reading from Genesis 3: 1-15.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”.
Points for the meditatio
· The deception of the astute serpent. Subtly this animal that 'speaks', (the word is the prerogative of a person) insinuates suspicion of the goodness of the Creator: he is not as good and generous if he has kept for himself the best, represented by the forbidden fruit. God is jealous of his divinity! The astute serpent, first of all, disfigures the face of the Creator making it look like a tyrant who wants to keep human beings in a situation of being inferior by prohibiting the empowerment that comes from knowledge. In contrasts, he presents himself as the true ally who wishes to 'open the eyes' in order to deliver the human condition from its edge of creatureliness (you will be like God). He seeks to poison and kill the foundational bond: the rapport of love and trust, of gratitude towards the Creator. He strikes the desire and plays on the restraint that God placed so that the desire remain open to the relationship and not become a fully autonomous strength disengaged from the Giver.
· The response of the woman. At first the woman defends the Truth, confronting the lie of the serpent. The affirmation: “You are not to eat from any of the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3:1) is false: It exaggerates the limit. There is only one tree from which not to eat. If from one position the woman’s response is correct on the other hand it does present a significant psychological distortion since she sees the forbidden tree at the centre of the garden (Gen. 3: 3), instead it is the tree of life that is at the “centre of the garden” (Gen. 2: 9; cf. Rev. 22: 2) This is how the mechanism of temptation looks like, which distorts reality and makes us place at the centre what we desire.
· They realized they were naked. The biblical author plays on the ambivalence of the word ‘nudity’. The second chapter of Genesis concludes with a detail of the innocent nudity, which does not provoke any embarrassment or shame: “Now both were naked, man and his wife, yet they felt no shame” (Gen. 2:25). This detail may seem irrelevant if it was not linked with our passage, where the “nudity” is seen as the first consequence of the transgression. Saint Augustine comments: “Only then did the human person become aware of the grace that clothed him before the fall”.
· Where are you? (Gen. 3: 9) This is the first question that the Bible places in the mouth of God. A question that undoubtedly calls for responsibility, but even before that, it reveals God’s initiative, his passionate search for humanity. Procopius of Gaza (465-528) says: “What Father so full of love has ever searched like this for his lost son?” God searches, calls: Adam where are you? “Are you in the divinity that the serpent promised you or in death?” (Ephraim the Syrian). With the same solicitude, God will approach Cain with the question: “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen. 4:9). God does not resign to the sin of humanity, as the Good Shepherd he quickly puts himself in search of the lost humankind.
· I was afraid...(Gen. 3:10) The human person does not respond appropriately to the question “Where are you?”, but to what he /she perceive contained: “Why do you hide?”. The deadly poison of the serpent begins to work: the fear of God and the shame of one’s nakedness. In fact, the friendly appearance of God in the garden is interpreted as the arrival of a ruthless judge seeking the culprit. The Creator, the source of every gift, is seen as a rival that is intimidating. From the outset the Devil (the “divisor”, diàbolos in Greek) is true to its name: it creates division (diabàllein). Having broken the fundamental bond with the Creator, it destroys the harmony of creation throwing division within the couple, between man and woman. Adam justifies himself by discharging his responsibilities: blaming the origin of the guilt to his companion (v. 12) and the woman behaves similarly accusing the serpent (v. 13).
· So the Lord said… (Gen. 3:14). The judgment of the Lord addresses the culprits in the reverse order that emerged in the dialogue: firstly he turns to the serpent (vv. 14-15), then to the woman (v. 16) and finally to man (vv. 17-19). It is a judgment that allows truth to emerge and to experience the devastating effects of sin.
· From sin to the proto-evangelium (Gen. 3:15). God does not resign to the loss of humanity and immediately puts into motion the “salvation history”. There will be a continuous struggle between the serpent and the woman but the final victory will not go to the serpent. God announces that the offspring of the woman “will crush his head”. In the Christian perspective the snake's head is crushed by Jesus, the son of Mary. “When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of woman” (Gal. 4:4). But the fight continues and involves each one of us as “offspring of the woman”. The Venerable Bede writes: “The woman crushes the serpent's head when the Holy Church immediately grabs, on the first appearance, the wiles of the devil and his poisonous influences, and – almost trampling over them - reduces them to nothing”.
B. From Genesis to Revelation (12:1-6)
1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God. (Rev. 12:1-6)
Points for the meditation
· Revelation rereads Genesis in a Christological - ecclesial key, expounding for us another dimension of Advent. The woman, against whom the dragon is raging, is the new Zion (Mary/Church) presented in connection with her eschatological maternity.
In heaven (God’s space) two large signs confront each other: the woman in birth pangs “clothed with the sun” and the dragon with seven heads, ready to devour the child. The text states that the great dragon is “the old serpent” (Ap. 12:9; cf. Gen. 3:1). But its head is even multiplied by seven? How can its voracity be evaded?
· Against the dragon there is a woman, no longer naked nor dressed in a “leather tunic” (Gen. 3:21), but clothed with light, “clothed with the Sun” (Rev. 12:1). However this regal woman, who has the moon under her feet and her head crowned with twelve stars, is weak and fragile as any pregnant woman. She cries out with birth pangs while the dragon is perched in front of her to devour the child... Here's the situation of the Church, of every baptized person, each of us clothed with the same light of God and yet fragile, in labour of child birth. We are called as Mary, to give birth to Christ: “donec formetur Chritus in vobis” (Gal. 4:19).
· Revelation confirms the proto- evangelium: it will not be the dragon who will sing victory, but the offspring of the woman (Gen. 3:15). Salvation belongs to the son of the woman, destined to pasture all people (Rev. 12:5).
· What stands out in regards to Advent is a sense of the already and the not yet: “while waiting for your coming”. A waiting that questions us directly and involves us personally because we too are called to give birth to Christ, to be “Mother of Jesus” (cf. Mk. 3: 33-35). The Fathers of the Church use to say “we are pregnant with God”. But pregnancy always implies responsibility and risk, involving ‘labour’.
IN DIALOGUE AND IN CONFRONTATION WITH THE WORD (“way”)
· I allow myself to be reached by the question of the Creator, who as the Good Shepherd is in search of me: “Where are you?”. What is my answer? Where has my sin brought me? I revisit my history, my relationships beginning from the foundational one with my Creator. What are my fears, my temptations?
· At this time of waiting, how do I feel called to give birth to Christ, to be “Mother of Jesus”? In our religious community and/or in the parish, what are some of the signs that indicate that we are “pregnant with God”?
· I am open to accept the salvation announced by God in the proto-Evangelium. St. Irenaeus writes: “The Son of God himself came down and took on the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), to condemn sin, and after having condemned it, to completely exclude it from the human race. He called person to take on his likeness, appointing him/her as an imitator of God, establishing each person in the way indicated by the Father so that he/she could see God and gave him/her the gift of the Father. The Word of God made his dwelling among humanity and made Himself the Son of Man in order to accustom the human person to perceive God, and to accustom God to make his dwelling in humankind, according to the will of the Father. For this reason the Lord himself gave as the sign of our salvation, the one who was born of the Virgin, Emmanuel. It was the Lord himself who saved them, for by themselves they had no power to be saved” (Against heresies, III, 20, 2-3).