Several years ago, in my first parish in North London, England, I was standing one evening with my chief pastor and another priest, in the upstairs balcony of the rectory, looking out at the peaceful night scene in the street below. Suddenly, a black van, its tires screaming, came out of nowhere and reversed through the front window of an electronics store opposite our church. We watched in stunned amazement as several men rushed out of the van and into the store through the shattered window and began looting the store, carrying out TV sets, record players, computers and the like and loading them into the van. There was no-one in the street, no-one to raise the alarm except us, which we did, and we shouted at the robbers that we had called the police. Well, they just carried on as before, totally ignoring us, and when they had loaded up their van, got in and drove off as speedily as they had come. It was a classic “smash and grab” raid and we were front-row eye-witnesses of it all.
The police eventually arrived, too late to apprehend the robbers, and we gave our witness statements. But we were all stunned by the speed, the brazenness, and the complete nonchalance of the way the robbers carried out their raid. That memory, of events nearly 35 years ago, rose spontaneously to mind as I read our first reading today. Because it seems to me that this was exactly what the devil did to our first parents when he “crashed” into the blissful, peaceful world that they were enjoying in the garden of Eden. By persuading Eve to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, the devil , at a stroke, robbed our first parents of everything they had been enjoying up to that moment: the security, peace and joy of Eden, the gift of God’s grace and favor, the blessing of the Holy Spirit, everlasting life in the company and presence of God – all gone in a moment. And all carried out while Adam stood watching. The devil went about his evil plan almost nonchalantly, it seems, and taking absolutely no notice of Adam, who, surely, should have done something to intervene here. Perhaps, like myself, and the other priests that evening years ago, Adam was stunned by the sheer audacity, and unexpected nature of the attack. It was, for Adam and Eve, a classic “smash and grab” action on Satan’s part.
At that moment, the devil robbed the whole human race of all that it had received as gracious gift from God. Jesus described it in these terms. The devil, he said, “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10) all the good things we could have enjoyed if we had not succumbed to his temptation, including life itself, the life of God, eternal life, supernatural life, the life of heaven. Notice that Jesus uses the present tense when describing the works of Satan. Not “he came to steal, and kill and destroy”, but he “comes” to do all of that to us. The devil is continually at us all our lives, as St Peter puts it in his first letter, “Be alert and disciplined, for, like a roaring lion, your enemy the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. You must stand up to him, solid in your faith” (1 Peter 5: 8-9). St Peter is merely repeating words God spoke long ago to Cain, warning him: “sin is lurking at your door; its desire is to take you, but you must be the one to master it!” (Genesis 4:7).
However, despite these words of caution , it seems in my experience that , whenever the devil comes after me, to lure me away from the right path into sin, he nearly always catches me off-guard, at a time when I am not alert and disciplined , not desiring holiness with all my heart, or when I am distracted and distraught, over some issue or other, and not paying attention to the subtlety of Satan’s attacks . So, I am victim, time and again, and again, of Satan’s “smash and grab” tactics. Like St Paul, in his letter to the Romans, I find myself lamenting: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body, doomed to death?” and then I realize, as did St Paul immediately afterwards: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (cf Romans 7: 24-25).
Because God is never, ever, gets caught off-guard. He is always alert to the devil’s schemes, continually alerting us to his temptations, and offering his support and strength to resist him. The problem is not with God not warning us, it is with us, you and me, not paying sufficient attention to the warnings, and continually being caught back on our heels. And whereas we three priests , watching from our balcony while that raid took place, and whereas Adam , we are told, stood by while his wife was being outsmarted by Satan and did absolutely nothing about it, God, was not bamboozled and rendered inactive. Having granted the human race the gift of free will, God could not interfere and stop what was happening. However, almost immediately afterwards, God is outlining to Adam and Eve, and in the presence of the devil himself, his plan to overturn the consequences of their fall into sin. He was going, in the fullness of time, to send someone to defeat Satan and restore humanity to its first state of innocence and blissfulness of an intimate, personal relationship with God. And so it happened. As Paul says, in Galatians “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as his children. And because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba! Father!” So, you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child, then also an heir, through God” (Galatians 4: 4-7).
Immediately after warning us that the devil comes ‘to steal, and kill, and destroy’, Jesus goes onto say that “I have come that you may have life, and life to the full” (John 10:10). Jesus came to deliver us from all the consequences of sin, namely death and hell, and slavery to the evil will of Satan. Those beautiful stories in our gospel today, showing Christ’s power to save and to heal, all demonstrate his desire and willingness and ability to deliver us from the wretched yoke that the devil has imposed on us, to our shame and misery and suffering. Jesus, in the words of our second reading today, “became poor for our sake, so that we might become rich”, rich in his grace and mercy, and in the fullness of life. And as our responsorial psalm underlines “weeping may linger during the night” of sin and its consequences, but Christ is the dawn and morning of our salvation, and joy comes to us in the person of this dawn, this blessed morning, Jesus Christ.
Yes, weeping may be our companion for the duration of us remaining in our sin, but the moment we come to confession to repent of our sin and ask for God’s forgiveness, then Christ restores to us, in the words of Psalm 51 “the joy of our salvation” (Psalm 51:12). In confession, our mourning, our loss of the life of grace, is turned into dancing, the dance of salvation with our bridegroom, Jesus. And to finish, as an antidote to any misguided beliefs that we have concerning God, that he in a perpetual state of anger towards us, let’s read, this line from our psalm today: “his anger is but for a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.”
Amen, alleluia, praise be to God.