advent reflection for dec 2

waiting for the tree of life

Recall the story of the fall from the beginning of Genesis. God gives Adam a choice: Adam may either love and trust in the Lord, or take control over morality and usurp God’s authority by eating the forbidden fruit. It is ubiquitously known that Adam and Eve fall to the temptation of the serpent and disobey God. God’s response, though, is intriguing.

When God pronounces his punishment for the serpent, he makes a strange claim: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). The Old Testament here gives us our first beacon of hope. The serpent, the author of death himself, will come to a crushing defeat. This prophecy of the serpent’s defeat at the hands of the Woman’s son should prepare us for what Jesus is coming to do for us.

Jesus, son of the woman, not only delivers the final victorious blow to the serpent by his resurrection; he also gives us access once again to the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life looks very different than we imagine it looked in Eden. Instead of a fruit, we look to the flesh of God hanging from the tree at Gethsemane. The son of the woman does indeed undo the sin of Adam. Adam ate the food which brought death. Jesus, by his death gives us the food of eternal life.