Saturday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 13, 2021

Genesis 3:9-24

The LORD God called to Adam and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with meB she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” The LORD God then asked the woman, “Why did you do such a thing?” The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.” Then the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” To the woman he said: “I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master.” To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, “Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.” The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living. PFor the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments, with which he clothed them. Then the LORD God said: “See! The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is evil! Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life also, and thus eat of it and live forever.” The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken. When he expelled the man, he settled him east of the garden of Eden; and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

The word “paradise” only occurs in the Scriptures a handful of times.  It is a Persian word meaning “a pleasure park”, “an orchard”, or an “enclosed garden”.  The meaning implies a place deliberately planted and arranged for human benefit.  The word is found in the opening chapters of Genesis, in the Gospel of St. Luke, and in Revelation.  In Revelation 2, 7, the Lord says in his letter to the church at Ephesus, dictated to St. John: “To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of my God.”  Thus, the loss of paradise, described in the First Reading for today’s Mass, has been repaired, and the one who believes in Christ and overcomes temptation and persecution will enter it.  The Lord himself will “give to eat of the tree of life”, and so he shall live forever.

In Luke 23, 43, the Lord tells the Good Thief, whose name has come down to us as “Dismas”: “Amen I say to you: This day you shall be with me in paradise.”  The Good Thief, hanging on a cross beside Jesus, several feet off, confesses his faith in him and asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom.  Jesus’s answer makes clear that his kingdom is paradise: “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

The use here and in Revelation of “paradise” ought to make us wonder.  The word is not used at all in the prophets or the psalms, and only comes up again in two places in the New Testament, as though it only brought up bitter memories of what was lost long ago.  But why does the Lord Jesus use this word — which he is not recorded as using during his preaching — at the end of his life?  Surely, he could have simply said to the Good Thief, “This day you will be with me in heaven”, or “in my kingdom”, or “in the kingdom of heaven”, terms he had actually used during his preaching.  The Lord purposely uses “paradise” for two reasons.  First, he promises refreshing sweetness to a man who is himself parched with thirst and gasping for breath, a man who like the Lord has eaten or drunk nothing since, perhaps, the evening before, nor has he slept, in all likelihood.  The Lord promises him the cool breezes of the Garden, peaceful rest, and his wonderful fellowship there, after this nightmare of scorching heat and the mockery and blows of the soldiers and the crowd amidst his agony.

Second, the Lord is teaching that all things will now be restored through his Death.  The Good Thief signifies us, condemned to die because of our sins and utterly unable to help ourselves.  Seeing our Lord, we cry to him for mercy, admitting our guilt and his perfect innocence.  The Lord, moved by his compassion for our fallen condition and our repentance of heart, brings us back to the place meant for us in the beginning.  We are as naked as the Good Thief, and as guilty, and as contrite.  This stands in contrast to Adam, who though naked and guilty, did not ask for mercy but set the blame on his wife.  For the Saints after their deaths on earth, paradise is no longer guarded by the fierce cherubim with his fiery sword, but is opened up wide by the One holding his Cross.