December 2: Paradise Lost: Redemption Foretold
♫ Music:
Day 2 - Monday, December 02
Title: Paradise Lost: Redemption Foretold
Scripture: Genesis 3:8–15 (NKJV)
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And 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.”
Poetry:
“Where Are You?”
by Phillip Aijian
And so begins the odd phenomenon
of God asking questions that, clearly, He
always had answers to. But He goes on—
as if his call to them might merely be
to pass the time or to disguise his grief—
like a variation of hide-and-seek
might supply him with a moment’s relief
from the subject whose prospect was too bleak:
unhidden disobedience. All seen
even before her fingers grasped the skin,
before the honeyed words that passed between
the two of them; the dooming of our kin.
He saw the very moment when—if sight
correctly names perceiving their demise—
preference in the will bent left or right.
As if a tree, despairing of the skies,
forsook the sun to taste the lesser light
of nearby fire. Curving by degrees
it surrenders to the lifeless delight
of hissing flame. And though with smoke it pleas,
perhaps, to be withdrawn, we know its veins
forever closed and leaves forever brown.
New-burned by shame, with Eve Adam disdains
the garden for his shade. And with a frown,
with a stilling of breath, he turns his face
as if to hide—now such common recourse—
as if by hiding they might so erase
the spirit’s darker fact. And with what force
they strove to bury the burning knowledge:
even as God humbles himself to call,
husband and wife begin to blame and hedge,
growing more immune to the rise and fall
of their own hearts voicing prosecutions.
Perhaps the incarnation begins here—
as God submits to their diminutions,
asking permission to enter their fear.
EXITUS
The theme of exit and return is a powerful one in the Christian tradition, captured in the Latin phrase exitus-reditus. We see this pattern in the life of the God’s chosen people when they wander from him through disobedience, but he delivers them from their oppressors. Is there not a better image of exit and return than Israel’s exodus from Egypt? We also see this pattern in the life of Jesus Christ himself, in that he left heaven to become incarnate of the Virgin Mary to purchase salvation for sinful humankind but then returned to sit in glory at the right hand of God the Father. But the pattern of exit and return is not just the story of Israel and Jesus but the story of fallen humankind, played out across the breadth of the Christian Scriptures. Adam and Eve sin against God and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. They “did eat, which was a sin, and thus their ruin did begin,” according to today’s hymn and vividly depicted by Masaccio’s Expulsion.
But their exit is only one half of the equation for there will be a return and that return is already depicted in Gen. 3:15: Eve’s seed “shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” This text, the first utterance of the gospel of Jesus Christ (called the protoevangelium), foretells the return of humankind back to Edenic paradise wherein they will walk with God “in the cool of the day” (cf. Rev. 21-22). The old Eve will be recapitulated by Mary, the Mother of God, who is the new Eve, and the old Adam will be redeemed by the new Adam – Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:45).
Poet Phillip Aijian captures this exit-return motif well when he writes that “Perhaps the incarnation begins here.” Perhaps indeed! Theologically speaking, return always follows exit for it is God’s nature to redeem fallenness, to restore the penitent, to ransom the captive. For if there were only exit there would be no gospel, no hope, no Christmas. When humans rebel against God, we seek to hide from him, but he chooses to seek us out to return us to our former glory: “God submits to their diminutions, asking permission to enter their fear.” By entering, through the incarnation, into human history, God will return humankind to himself. The feast of Christmas is the first step on our return to God. He is calling to us, so let us respond in obedience to his call.
Prayer:
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Rev. Greg Peters, Ph.D., S.M.D.
Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Vicar of Anglican Church of the Epiphany, La Mirada
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork #1:
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Masaccio
c. 1425
7' x 2'11 in.
Fresco
Brancacci Chapel
Church of Santa Maria del Carmine
Florence, Italy
Public domain
The Expulsion from the Garden is a single scene from a fresco cycle painted by Masaccio on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, Italy. The painting shows the scene from the book of Genesis after Adam and Eve have eaten fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge and were subsequently cast out from the Garden of Eden to live in a world where they were forced to labor and suffer the consequences of their sin. Masaccio's evocation of Eve's deeply felt pain in particular explores the meaning of the expulsion on a previously unexamined, more personal level. It is a scene of remarkable emotion, as Eve, who covers herself in her shame, cries out in anguish, while Adam covers his face in disgrace. Three centuries after the fresco was originally painted, Cosimo III de' Medici, in line with accepted modes of decorum, ordered that fig leaves be added to the figures to conceal their nudity. These were eventually removed in the 1980s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_from_the_Garden_of_Eden
About the Artwork #2:
Madonna Casini
Masaccio
c. 1426
24 x 18 cm.
Tempera painting on a gold panel
Uffizi Museum of Art
Florence, Italy
Public domain
The attribution of this work to Masaccio, at first contested by several critics, is now almost unanimously accepted, even though no documents survive that mention this little masterpiece, which was destined for private devotion. Therefore the painter's identity was proposed on the basis of the style of the work—the playful gesture of the Madonna, and the laughing, joyous Christ child who playfully pushes back his mother's hand with his own little ones, transmit a spontaneous and natural humanity typical of Masaccio, the supreme painter of the early Renaissance. The work has been dubbed “Madonna of the Tickle” because of the playful interaction between mother and child. Because of its small size, and thus its easy transportability, it endured various adventures—the painting was stolen by the Nazis, rescued after the war, stolen once more, and recovered during the 1970s, and finally found its way to the Uffizi Museum of Art in Florence, Italy.
https://izi.travel/en/93da-masaccio-madonna-col-bambino-detta-madonna-del-solletico/en#:~:text=This%20painting%2C%20measuring%20only%2024.5,war%2C%20stolen%20once%20more%20and
https://izi.travel/en/93da-masaccio-madonna-col-bambino-detta-madonna-del-solletico/en
About the Artist #1 and #2:
Masaccio (1401–1428), born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone, was the first great painter of the quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance, with an extraordinary skill at re-creating lifelike figures and movements, as well as a convincing sense of three-dimensionality. He was one of the first to use linear perspective in his painting, employing techniques such as the vanishing point in art for the first time. He also moved away from the International Gothic style and elaborate ornamentation to a more naturalistic style that employed perspective and chiaroscuro for greater realism. Despite his short life, he influenced generations of artists that followed, including Michelangelo, who traveled to Florence specifically to learn from his work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaccio
https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1688.html
About the Music:
“This is the Truth Sent from Above” from the album Christmas with Chanticleer and Dawn Upshaw
Lyrics:
This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love;
Therefore don’t turn me from your door,
But hearken all, both rich and poor.
The first thing, which I will relate,
Is that God did man create
The next thing, which to you I’ll tell,
Woman was made with man to dwell.
Then after this, ‘twas God’s own choice
To place them both in Paradise,
There to remain from evil free
Except they ate of such a tree.
And they did eat, which was a sin,
And thus their ruin did begin;
Ruined themselves, both you and me,
And all of their posterity.
Thus we were heirs to endless woes,
Till God the Lord did interpose
And so a promise soon did run
That He would redeem us by His Son. (x2)
God grant to all within this place
True saving faith—that special grace,
Which to His people doth belong—
And thus I close my Christmas song.
About the Composer: English Traditional Carol
"The Truth Sent from Above" is an English folk carol of unknown authorship usually performed at Christmas. Collected in the early part of the twentieth century by English folk song collectors in Shropshire and Herefordshire, a number of variations on the tune exist, but in all versions the text remains broadly similar to the first line of the carol: "This is the truth sent from above."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_truth_sent_from_above
About the Performers: Dawn Upshaw and Chanticleer
Dawn Upshaw (b. 1960) is an American soprano. The recipient of several Grammy Awards, she performs both opera and art song, and her repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary genres. Many composers, including Henri Dutilleux, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, and Kaija Saariaho, have written specifically for her. Upshaw has premiered more than twenty-five new works. In 2007, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She tours regularly with pianist Gilbert Kalish. She holds honorary doctor of arts degrees from Yale University, the Manhattan School of Music, Illinois Wesleyan University, and Allegheny College.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_Upshaw
https://colbertartists.com/artists/dawn-upshaw/
Based in San Francisco, California, Chanticleer is a full-time male classical vocal ensemble. Over the last three decades, it has developed a major reputation for its interpretations of Renaissance music, but it also performs a wide repertoire of jazz, gospel, and other new music. Chanticleer is known around the world as “an orchestra of voices” for the seamless blend of its twelve male voices ranging from soprano to bass and its original interpretations of vocal literature, from Renaissance to jazz and popular genres, as well as contemporary composition.
https://www.chanticleer.org/
About the Poetry & Poet:
Phillip Aijian holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance drama and theology from UC Irvine, as well as an M.A. in poetry from the University of Missouri. He teaches literature and religious studies at Biola University and has published in journals like ZYZZYVA, Heron Tree, Poor Yorick, and Zocalo Public Square. He lives in California with his wife and children.
https://www.phillipaijian.com/
About the Devotion Author:
Rev. Greg Peters, Ph.D., S.M.D.
Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Vicar of Anglican Church of the Epiphany, La Mirada
Dr. Greg Peters is a professor in the Torrey Honors College at Biola University and vicar of Anglican Church of the Epiphany, La Mirada. He is also the author of The Monkhood of All Believers: The Monastic Foundation of Christian Spirituality.