THE FALL AND SALVATION OF MAN

 Meditation for Friday of the 5^th Week in Ordinary Time, Year B
(Gen 3:1-8; Mk 7:31-37)

As the beautiful story of creation is unfolding, suddenly and disappointedly, we hear the sad story of the fall of man. It was unprecedented. A sense of chaos began to re-emerge as Adam and Eve were now more preoccupied with self-survival than walking hand in hand with the Lord God. They discovered at the late hour that the serpent tricked them; the sugar-coated and pleasurable promises he made to them did not exist. Worse still, having pulled them down from relying on God’s will and command, the serpent had no solution for their misery. Imagine where self-preservation became the highest preoccupation of human beings, each person would become a burden unto himself, and would distrust God and his neighbour! “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

In the Gospel, Jesus steps in; God now dwells among His people. Jesus passed through the Gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon down to Galilee and through the Decapolis. The people that were originally separated from God by sin can now be reconciled. And those bearing upon themselves the burden and wounds of the fall of man, can now be healed. Jesus feels the wretchedness of man in his isolated life of sin, and takes upon himself the burden we ought to bear. “And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’”

The man regained his freedom, and bore witness to the goodness of God. As the people zealously praised God, we see the new order of the redeemed man in Christ Jesus, that self-preservation is no more his preoccupation, but to worship God. Thanks be to God for we can now trust God and our neighbour, and live freely.

May Almighty God bless  you, The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Fr Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R
Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church,
Tedi-Muwo, Lagos.
Friday February 12^th, 2021.
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