First Adam, last Adam

1 Corinthians 15:41-50

          And so the story of scripture goes that Adam ate the forbidden fruit  thus casting the first couple out of paradise. Of course the idea of that very first Adam and Eve seems more of a figurative story. The story illustrating from where we came (God) and that it was our own choices that take us away from our creator. We essentially threw ourselves out of paradise. This is the essence of the concept of original sin. Of course there is another concept that while our choices do take us away from God in our selfishness and perhaps arrogance, we really do not have original sin. What we have is  an 'original blessing' if you would follow what Matthew Fox tries to convey in his book of the same name. It's a book I read long ago when I was advised by a Catholic cleric that I was mature enough spiritually not to take it too seriously. I mean really, original blessing? I don't believe that the idea of an original blessing denies the fact that it is we who have a propensity to turn our backs on God. This is the essence of sin but we are not born in sin. We are born in love and holiness and in God's image.

          So what of this last Adam? It is entirely possible to look at Jesus as the last Adam. The one who came to redeem us by saying yes to God, to the point of giving up his own life for us. Jesus is allowing us to enter back into holiness and thus to paradise.  Jesus, fully human, shows us that it is indeed possible for us to say yes to God. That in spite of what goes on the world and the presence of evil, we can say yes to God, achieve holiness and wholeness. Jesus is the last Adam, the template the ultimate lover of man (and woman).

           Whoever we are, whatever we are, we are all created with the original blessing. Whenever I would Baptize a baby I always tried to convey the concept of how this child is a blank slate insofar as not being tainted by the concerns and evils of the world. Whatever the congregation saw as wrong in the world, this child was a opportunity for us make the world a better place, bring the child closer to the wholeness love and perfection God created us to have.  The last Adam gives us that chance in Baptism and again every day.  

          Be the best person you can be, gay, straight, black, white,man, woman or somewhere in between.  The last Adam makes it all possible. 

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.