The Fall

Here on earth, it's the "Fall" season, and last night we were reminded of that fact with the now-annual modern rite of the "Fall Back" act of turning clocks back one hour in a return to standard time from daylight savings time.

But those are not what we're going to talk about here in reference to the Fall. We're going to take a look back at mankind's fall from grace, and even further back, to the fall from heaven which led to that one in Eden.

Most people are aware of the name "Lucifer", and in Christian tradition the name has been assigned to the principal angel with glory as bright as the morning star who led a revolt in heaven against God.

The term Lucifer should not, however, be understood to be a proper name of "the Devil" or "Satan", merely a reference to that state from which he has fallen, that place in the glory of heaven itself.

The devil is but one of what were originally angelic creatures created by God as spiritual beings in a state of innocence. They ultimately became evil as a result of their own willful act, and when this act saw them cast out in the first 'Fall from Heaven', they turned their gaze towards God's human creation, leading us to sin and to our own separation, or the 'Fall of Man' from paradise.

That first fall of the angels came when, as Isaiah told in reference to the King of Babylon in his own day, and as is applied originally to Lucifer "Thou said in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High."

The angel known as Lucifer led a rebellion of angels in heaven, seeking a place above God. The result was a war like none ever seen here on earth. As described in "Revelation" or the "Apocalypse": "there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon (Lucifer), and the dragon fought and his angels, and they prevailed not..."

The result of this rebellion, and the victory by Michael and the angels of heaven, was the 'Fall from Heaven' referred to earlier: "..neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."

Lucifer/Satan had ultimately committed the first sin of "pride", or the excessive love of one's own excellence. Through the love of his own worth, he attempted to withdraw himself from subjection to Almighty God. He was able to get the angels opposed to the Divine Incarnation to follow him.

These angels were jealous at the very thought of a lesser being, a human, being raised above them. That is how they saw Jesus, a man who would be raised above them.

Two Things About Bad Things

There are two things that we can absolutely say with certainty about bad things: they will happen to good people, and good people will do them.

The questions that all who want to believe in a loving, benevolent, saving God ask at some point in their lives often revolve around these two ideas. Those questions, of course, are:

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do good people do bad things?

In looking at the first question, we need to examine what it is that we are actually asking - what is the allegedly "bad" thing that is happening to the allegedly "good" person. Let's assume the second part of the equation here, that you or whomever you are asking about is indeed a "good" person.

So what is the "bad" thing that has happened? Has someone been injured in an accident? Is someone suffering from a debilitating illness? Has someone become the victim of a crime? Is there some major misfortune being dealt with, such as a house fire, a natural disaster, an inter-personal relationship gone bad? Has someone died?

If any of those things are the supposed "bad" thing then the answer is fairly simple: welcome to the real world.

It's Hard to Dance With a Devil On Your Back

Florence Welch awoke one morning after a particularly long, hard night of partying and drinking way too much. This particular morning-after found her body exhausted, her mind a scramble, and her soul depressed.

She wasn't particularly happy about what she could remember about that previous night. At the time she thought she was having a good time, but she didn't think about the consequences.

That is always going to be a problem, not realizing the fullness of the price that you are going to have to pay for the mistakes that you are willfully making right now in your life.

Florence Welch is a singer and a songwriter, and so the outlet that she chose to help her express and overcome her feelings that morning was to pen a song called "Shake It Out", one that she had her band, 'Florence and the Machine', set to music and video.

The bible tells us that Satan was an angel in God's heavenly army. The single most beautiful and magnificent angel, he was known as Lucifer, the angel of light. There was something about him that stood out, and it was noticed by other angels as well. His ego grew so large that he eventually believed that he could take God's place, and so he rebelled against God.

Of course, he could not win, but you could not tell him that. In the end he was banished from heaven for eternity, along with a third of the angels. They had chosen to follow Satan in his folly.

Cast down to earth, they looked about at God's creation knowing how important this world was to the Almighty. In particular, Satan saw the man and woman who were particularly beloved by God.

Adam and Eve had been created in God's own image, and they dwelt in a garden paradise without a care. They had no idea of the danger that was now approaching. They didn't even know of the concept of danger or fear. How could they possibly have been prepared for the devil?

A Lying Tongue

If you ask almost anyone to list the things that they hate, 'liars' will inevitably be near the top. A funny thing, since every single one of us has lied, and continue to lie at times.

Not always about big things, but often in small ways that involve both actual words that come from our mouths, or actions that we take or do not take. We do it in ways that we ourselves might not define as a 'lie' but that others most certainly would.

You see, most of us equate a lie with intent. As long as we did not actually intend to mislead someone maliciously then it wasn't really lying.

Maybe a 'mistake', or an 'exaggeration', or we were being 'nice' to someone by not hurting their feelings in telling them the cold, hard truth. Perhaps we were simply balancing two bad outcomes and deciding that by telling a 'little white lie' (in our minds) we would spare ourselves and possibly others a worse outcome than would occur by telling the truth.

Lying does not in actuality go to 'intent', instead being defined as an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker. Call it whatever you want, defend it however you want - we are all liars.

It is probably one of the reasons that we hate liars so much. When we tell a lie ourselves we understand what we are doing at our very core. That guilt feeling is hard-wired into us as a part of our humanity.

The Temple of You

We've all done it from time to time, taken a good, hard, long look in the mirror. That isn't meant to be rhetorical. I mean actually looked at our visage as it is reflected back to us, our physical appearance.

The reactions to that visage spread out across a wide spectrum from "yeah, baby, I got it goin' on" to a panicked scream. People who don't like what they see have sometimes taken extreme measures to change their bodies, but this does not always change the reflection.

Some of these include turning to an eating disorder such as anorexia and bulimia, even plastic surgeries that are not for some medical necessity. Some decide they just want to forget or push away the image. They turn to the bottle or to drugs. Some need constant reinforcement of their worth, and in doing so turn to numerous sexual partners in an effort to constantly stroke their egos.

This isn't going to turn into one of those 'hell fire and brimstone' speeches against the evils of the flesh. God knows that I have fallen victim many a time in my own life. Taking control of some of these reactions to the reflection has taken me most of the 47 years that I have looked in the mirror.

But maybe it would have all clicked in a bit sooner, and maybe I would have control of my weight and its related concerns, if I had the experience that I had a few days ago at an earlier point.

In the past few days I have been re-exposed to an old, famous quotation, and had it more clearly expressed and explained, and I hope that this renewal finally changes my approach to this problem.

We have all likely heard the old saying "Your body is your temple", but how many of us have really ever thought much about the meaning behind that saying? The saying comes directly from the Bible.

The Baptism of the Lord

Today we bring the official Church season of Christmas to a close by celebrating another important moment in the life of Jesus Christ, his baptism.

As preparation for His coming, Jesus' cousin who is known to us as John the Baptist has emerged from the wilderness and is preaching that change is coming. John is telling people that they must turn from their evil ways, repent, and be baptized as new children of God.

John was so charismatic that many were asking if indeed he were the awaited Messiah. These questions became so regular and consistent that John eventually felt he had to answer, and so he did most forcefully:

"I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy of loosening the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 

Jesus knew that the time had come for his public ministry to begin, and felt that the most important symbolic measure that he could take in beginning was to be baptized publicly by the most famous baptizer in John.