Lenten Meditation: Original Sin
“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”
The story of the Temptations of Christ is read on the First Sunday in Lent. In response to the second temptation, Christ responds with these words: “thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” But, of course, in relation to the idea and the reality of the doctrine of original sin, that is exactly and constantly what we do. We tempt God. We constantly put God to the test, trying to make him accountable and measurable to us. Our task this Lent is to ponder the mystery of our sinfulness, the mystery of original sin.
Original Sin: What is it and why does it matter?
Have you ever wondered, what’s wrong with the world? Have you ever wondered, what’s wrong with me? In other words, have you ever had that sense that nothing is the way it should be either with ourselves or others or our world and day? Has that sense of things not being right ever resulted in asking about evil? Unde hoc malum? Where does evil come from? Or do we persist in saying and thinking that everything is good; just a few bad apples in the pile that spoil everything?
Original sin is the doctrine that there is something radically and inescapably not right about any of us right from the get-go of our being. Very tough stuff. And yet, it seems, this is actually part and parcel of the good news. Original Sin catapults us into the totality of God’s grace and grants utter primacy to God’s will. Our task is to try to understand something about this strange and curious teaching that seems to cause so much consternation. Yet, as G.K. Chesterton observes, it is the most empirical of all Christian teachings, the most provable from experience.