Romans 5: 12-19
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
God’s Love is Greater Still
You may not have noticed before, but many depictions of the Twelfth Station of the Cross—the moment Jesus breathes his last—place a skull at the foot of the cross. Extra-biblical tradition holds that the hill of the Crucifixion, called “Golgotha,” the “place of the skull,” is the very ground where Adam was laid to rest millennia before.
The symbolism is powerful: the blood of Jesus, poured out upon the wood of the cross, falls upon the bones of the first man. Adam succumbs to the serpent’s temptation in the garden. Jesus, after forty days of fasting in the desert, withstands the assaults of that same ancient enemy. Through Adam, sin and death enter the world; through Christ, death is undone and grace overflows.
We echo this mystery during the Exultet at the Easter Vigil: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam which gained for us so great a Redeemer.” We dare to sing this not because sin is good, but because God’s love is greater still.
—Fr. Eric Immel, SJ, is a vocation promoter for the Midwest Jesuits. To learn more about how to become a Jesuit, visit beajesuit.org.
Prayer
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
—From the Exultet: The Proclamation of Easter
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