The Lectionary for Sunday Mass functions differently than on the other Sundays of the year. Each of the readings is chosen for a specific reason. The first reading from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures focuses upon salvation history as the presupposition of, preparation for, and in some respects a prefiguring of, the redemptive act of God in Christ. Today we hear the Genesis story of what has come to be known as Original Sin. This story presents the reason for the redemptive act of God in Christ.
The second reading, in today’s case from the Letter to the Romans, sets forth our participation in the death and resurrection of Christ through baptism and in the Christian life.
The gospel readings of series A, after the accounts of the temptation and the transfiguration, which are traditional on the first two Sundays, take up the great Johannine signs, which are prefigurements both of the saving events of Christ’s death and resurrection and of our participation in those saving events through baptism.
Despite the fundamental weaknesses of the human condition, clearly exemplified in the sin of Adam and Eve, the Scriptures point to the fact that our situation not hopeless. Somewhere deep within ourselves we know we are not helpless prisoners of our limitations. God has not deserted us to our guilt. With the psalmist today we hopefully plead: Have mercy on us in your loving kindness and compassion.
This psalm was written by King David when Nathan the prophet came before him and accused David of the murder of Uriah and adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. David has sinned grievously. Yet he is bold enough to remind God of the promise to forgive when he revealed himself to Moses as a God who was slow to anger and rich in mercy. David knows nothing about the redemptive death of Jesus, but he places his faith in God’s promise to forgive him if he is sincere in his confession of guilt. He cries out: “Thoroughly wash me of my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.” The Hebrew words used in this expression recall that women thoroughly wash their garments by beating them upon the rocks. This is what David asks God to do with him.
In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul makes the point that God’s salvific grace is incomparable in its nature. In order to illustrate the scope and force of this grace, Paul uses a diatribe, a form of argument used by the Greek Stoics. He sets us a comparison between the universal effects of sin and death and the all-encompassing power of forgiveness and life. He does this by contrasting the actions of Adam, “the type of the one who was to come,” and Jesus the Christ, his unrivaled counterpart. While it may appear the contrast is between Adam and Jesus, it is really between the epoch that each of them inaugurated. Adam started the era of sin and death; Christ established the era of acquittal and life. At each stage of Paul’s comparison we see the surpassing power of the salvation won for us by Christ.
In his conclusion, Paul draws the lives of comparison quite clearly: condemnation came through one sin, acquittal comes through one righteous act; disobedience brought death, obedience brought life. However, even in this comparison, the act of Christ was and is so much more powerful than any act of Adam. Grace surpasses sin.
It is for that grace that we pray today. We join with David and admit that we are sinners. However, unlike David, we know that Jesus has acted for us. So it is that we can confess our sins in the clear understanding that we are not left hopeless because of those sins. Each time we approach God through the Sacrament of Penance, we know that we will be forgiven. God has made this promise through the redemptive death of Jesus. God will grant us mercy, loving kindness, and compassion if we are truly sorry for our sins.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator