The Amazingly Good News of the Gospel
July 7, 2021
Fr. John Riccardo
“God helps those who help themselves.”
It’s heard—and perhaps said—by almost all of us countless times. Now, to be sure, as one writer put it, “The kingdom of God does not fall on us like rain.” Salvation is not as easy as standing outside and getting wet in a rain summer storm. We are not to be purely passive in this great drama of salvation.
And, yet, the testimony of the Word of God over and over again tells us something very different from that common expression. Indeed, God helps those who are incapable of helping themselves. And who is that? All of us. This is very good news! As we continue to read headline after headline, day after day, revealing the many flaws, sicknesses, wounds, and sins of our race, it is crucial to keep at the forefront of our minds the truth of who God is: faithful. He keeps His promises. All of them, And, as St. Augustine once said, “God has bound Himself to us by making so many extraordinary promises.”
In these summer days, then, whatever may be threatening to steal our peace, whether in the world, the Church, or closer to home in our own lives and family, let us fix our eyes firmly on the God who hears the cry of the poor. And saves. To help that, let’s eavesdrop again on an excerpt from The Christian Cosmic Narrative: The Deep History of the World.
“A veil hangs over the exact details of our first rebellion. The loss of Eden touches on the realm of the indescribable. But its effects are everywhere to be seen and everywhere the same. The human race multiplied and spread throughout the world. When we begin to encounter what we call history, the monuments and the memories, the writings and chronicles of the peoples of the earth, we find that amid the many variations of culture and the many differences of outward characteristics, the plight of humanity is shared equally in all parts of the world. Everywhere, we find the same hopes and aspirations; everywhere, we see the same inner conflict and outer discord. Wherever humans have settled, they have brought with them their powerful talents and their incurable moral diseases. Wherever they go, they build; they fashion works of beauty and usefulness; they inquire into the world around them and penetrate many of its secrets; they aspire to the greatness that they feel within them. And wherever they go, they oppress and destroy; they involve themselves in murderous conflicts; they prey upon one another for material gain; they send up cries of suffering and succumb to thoughts of futility. And wherever they go, they die.
“There is a near universal memory among the peoples of the world, often only dim and distant, of a previous golden age, a time when the burdens of existence were not intolerable, when men were wise and good. There is a near universal belief in some great deity beyond the many gods and spirits, a deity now so remote as to seem unapproachable.
“And there is a near universal pattern of seeking forgiveness for moral fault through sacrificial offering, a kind of instinct for repentance and propitiation. These historical realities are oblique reminders of that terrible original calamity recounted in the book of Genesis. We become used to the fact that humans, among all animals and all other created things, are ill at ease in their existence. We find it no surprise to hear people complain of the world, or of themselves and their inner conflicts, of their terrible suffering and their desires for a better life. We understand their concerns because we experience an echo of them within ourselves. But the fact is highly surprising and demands an explanation. Why should humans find themselves so unhappy with the circumstances of their existence? Why should they need to complain about what has come through purely natural processes? Do rocks complain about their lot? Do cows long for another and better world? Do the angels of heaven fight a war within themselves, unhappy and out of sorts, unable to make sense of their lives? This befuddling predicament of unhappiness, of alienation and exile, is unique to the human race, the result of our joining the demonic rebellion and of our exile from our true home.
“Our sources give us instructive accounts of our early history that indicate the results of this fall from God’s favor and our desperate need for help. In Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, we see that rupture with God led to disharmony and hatred between men. In the account of the Tower of Babel, raised by humans to reach to the heavens, we are presented with the characteristic human sin, the sin our race learned from the Devil: the attempt to gain divinity and eternity by our own powers. That attempt always fails, and results, as it did in Babel, in the further disruption of the human race: languages were confused and the social fabric was torn. We are told the melancholy truth that God saw and deeply regretted the evil that had infected humanity, and that he went so far as to say: ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them’ (Gen 6:7–9).
“It seemed that this grand creative project had been a failure and that the purposes of God had been foiled. It seemed that Satan had succeeded in his dark design of irrevocably harming God’s creation and of enslaving the race he had been meant to serve. Yet from the beginning, from the time of the fall of our first parents, God was taking thought concerning how he would renew and re-create the human race. Would it be in keeping with God’s majesty that the Devil should so destroy his handiwork? Would it be in keeping with God’s goodness that he should see his creatures languishing in slavery and not do something about it? Would even an earthly king sit idly by while a great part of his country was plundered by an enemy? So God laid a curse upon the Devil—the Serpent in the garden—and gave notice of his continued concern for humanity: ‘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’ (Gen. 3:15). And though justice demanded that the human race be blotted out, in God’s yet greater mercy he determined to save humanity in an unlooked-for way.
“After sending Noah and his sons, as guardians of the race and stewards of the world, into the protection of the Ark against the storms of destruction, God made a promise, a covenant with Noah, that he would remain with this wayward race through thick and thin, and find a way to bring them back from their rebellion and to free them from the bonds of their self-inflicted slavery.”