Clothed with Righteousness

“Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” Genesis 3:11

I don't think we can imagine the beauty, the lushness, the fragrance of the trees and plants in the Garden of Eden. According to the boundaries in the Bible, the Garden was probably just a few hundred square miles in what is now war-torn Iraq. It was full of good food for the first man and woman. But God always from the beginning has given us free will, the choice to obey or not to obey. And like many of us today, Adam and Eve chose to eat of the fruit of the one tree forbidden!

I think of our lives today. So much blessing surrounds us. Food on our table, a roof over our heads. People we love and who love us. There is so much favor available to us if we choose to obey God. But many of us choose to disobey. To choose the one thing forbidden, or even many things that God abhors. And that is why there is so much death all around. Death of marriages, of relationships, abortion, war, pollution, corruption, fake news and misinformation, etc.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, an American convert to Catholicism, enumerates what he calls The Six Stages of Evil: 1. First, we overlook evil. 2. Then we permit evil. 3. Then we legalise evil. 4. Then we promote evil. 5. Then we celebrate evil. 6. Then we persecute those who still call it evil. This is so blatant in our society today. 

But just as God clothed Adam and Eve (Gen.3:21), He still gives us another chance. We can be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus if we accept this precious gift from God's hand.