Today's Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 1 verses 24 and 25:
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Sin is it's own punishment. To get what we covet is to be given over by God to our own crooked and unholy desires. The fruit was pleasing in the eye of Eve. Her punishment was to taste of its bitterness; only then were her eyes opened to see the fruit for what it really was -- spiritual death.
Throughout the Biblical witness God again and again gives his people up to the lusts of their own hearts. It began with Eve and with Adam and continued through the story of Israel. This is again and again God's way of getting at God's people. Given over to their idolatrous lusts, they again and again discover the bitter fruit of rebelliousness. Sin does become its own punishment. They get what they want only to discover they really do not want what they've gotten. This drives them, finally, back into the arms of God. And God's arms are always open. God, who will never force Himself upon us, stands waiting like the Prodigal Son's Father. Having given us up to our prodigal ways, now He stands waiting at the door for humble return. This is not so much the fall from grace but the fall to grace.
I love the theology of Julian of Norwich, who unlike so many of the male theologians of the West saw the Fall not so much as tragedy but as gift. "First the Fall and then the redemption," she said, "and both the grace of God."
Or, as a certain other prodigal Brit once put it:
"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need"
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