What If

Comparing the old and new Adam and Eve

08/15/2023

1 COR 15:20-27 Brothers and sisters: Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ; then comes the end, when he hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for “he subjected everything under his feet.”

After we reach a certain age, usually when we have more years behind us than before us, we start looking back at life and ask the question, “What if?” For example, I might ask myself, “What if I had decided to go to Harvard instead of the University of Dallas?” As if I could get into Harvard! Or, “what if I had married my high school sweetheart instead of going into the seminary?”

For the record, I did not have a high school sweetheart but let’s just pretend for the sake of argument. Or, “what if I had decided to become an astronaut and go to Mars instead of becoming a priest and coming to Fort Smith?” Have you ever looked back at life and asked yourself similar “What if…” questions? We all wonder how differently our life might have turned out.

Well, I am convinced that all our smaller, individual “What if…” questions can all be traced all the way back to the original and ultimate “What if…” question that carried cosmic consequences, namely, “What if Adam and Eve had not committed the original sin and had stood up to the Tempter who offered them the fruit of the tree of knowledge?” Have you ever wondered that?

In a sense, that ultimate “What if…” question lies behind and overshadows my much smaller and personal questions. What do I mean? Well, if our primordial parents Adam and Eve had not sinned, I wouldn’t have to wonder about college, or companion, or career. That is, we would all still be living in the Garden of Eden and munching on the fruit of the tree of life and living forever.

Now, how do I know that would be the case? Well, we don’t have to look any further than Jesus and Mary. They are Exhibit A and Exhibit B of what life would (and should be) like for all of us. If we carefully study both Scripture and Tradition, we discover that Mary is described as the New Eve and Jesus is considered the New Adam. In other words, what Mary and Jesus did is precisely what the old Eve and the old Adam should have done. They answer the question, what if Adam and Eve had not sinned? How so?

Well, old Eve should not have listened to or obeyed the Serpent (who by the way was a fallen angel named Lucifer) in the Garden of Eden. Mary, on the other hand, the new Eve listened to another angel (the Archangel Gabriel) and obeyed his invitation to become the Mother of God. Notice how both women were confronted by angels, and that is where a profound parallel lies.

And the old Adam should have been present and put himself between the Serpent and his wife, ready to suffer and die for her, but he was conspicuously absent and silent while Eve talked to the Serpent. Jesus, on the other hand, the new Adam, was fully present and ready to suffer and die on the Cross for his Bride, the Church, embodied in Mary. Jesus put himself between Satan and his Spouse and he paid the price. In other words, Jesus and Mary, the new Adam and new Eve, are the color photo of which the old Adam and old Eve are sort of the photo negative. Jesus and Mary did what Adam and Eve should have done.

Now with all that as preliminary background, we can understand a little better today’s Solemnity of the Assumption. How does that help us? Well, the Assumption is the doctrine that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was assumed by the power of God – not her own power, mind you – body and soul into heaven. That is, our Mother Mary did not experience bodily death, the separation of body and soul. Rather, she was immediately taken up to heaven. By the way, that is why there is no tomb of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ephesus, where she spent her final years.

Now, why do we Catholics insist that Mary did not die? Well, because in 1 Co 15 (our second reading today), St. Paul notes how death is a consequence of sin, indeed, death came from original sin. But if you don’t sin, then you don’t die; sin and death are inextricably united. The Apostle Paul writes: “For since death came through man [Adam, because he sinned], the resurrection of the dead came also through man [Jesus, because he did not sin].”

And since Mary did not sin- thanks to Jesus’ grace – she was not subject to the consequence of sin, namely, death. That is why Ps 45:10 declares: “The queen [Mary] stands are your right hand arrayed in gold.” And she cannot “stand” unless she has legs and therefore a body. In other words, she stands body and soul in heaven, not just in her spirit.

Did you catch that? There is a tight correlation and connection between all the truths of faith. They are like the threads of a seamless garment. They all hold together and strengthen each other. If you were to tug and loosen even one thread – by throwing out the doctrine of the Assumption for instance – the whole garment of the Christian faith would come loose and unravel.

In 1950 Pope Pius XII promulgated the doctrine of the Assumption in a document called Munificentissimus Deus. He insisted that the Assumption was not something new or innovative, but rather intrinsic and inseparable from the Christian faith. He wrote: “The scholastic theologians…have always considered it worthy of note that this privilege of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption is wonderfully in accord with those divine truths given us in Holy Scripture” (no. 24). When we consider the Assumption of Mary together with everything else we believe: about Jesus, or the Church, or the Eucharist, it is all or nothing.

We all muse over our little “What if…” questions about our own lives. But every now and then, in our more prayerful moments, our minds ask the big "What if..." question about the whole human race. What if Adam and Eve had never sinned and had been entirely obedient to God’s commandments? What would life look like? The answer is: it would look like Jesus and Mary, the new Adam and new Eve. And we would look a lot more like Jesus and Mary, too, and then no longer need to ask questions like “What if…?”

Praised be Jesus Christ!