There is a statement in the Book of Genesis that is sweetly simple: "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good" (1.31). This is what we would expect of God. It is impossible for Him to make or do anything bad. God is all good.

This verse serves as an Advent meditation. We are preparing to celebrate the first coming of Jesus into this world; we do that while we wait through the season of Advent with faith and hope and prayer. The hymns we sing all point to His future birth with great anticipation. We yearn for His coming because it is . . . good.

We should not be surprised at the goodness of God, even to the point of giving us His own Son. After all, He is all good.

Orginally the universe was good. The earth was a happy place, there was no pain or sorrow, the weather was moderate the year round, work was a supreme joy, and it was supposed to remain that way.

God had made Adem and Eve good, and part of that goodness was the free will He had instilled in them. He did not want them, and consequently the rest of us, to be automatons, robots with no will, or puppets on a string to be dangled and jerked up and down. Therefore, though they were made good, they had free will which could be exercised toward evil. In other words, they could choose evil over good if they wished.

You know the rest of the sad story. What God had made good, Adam and Eve made bad.

And that's why we are celebrating Advent. The evil brought into the world through our first parents by Satan's temptation affected not only nature but ourselves as well. We bacame tainted right down to our very genes and up to our very souls. This is the inheritance of Adam and Eve.

Obviously we had to be repaired. We were supposed to be good, and we weren't. So God, in Eden, after the fall, said to Satan: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel" (Genesis 3.15). This is the first Gospel message ever uttered: the offspring of a woman was to be hurt be Satan, but that person would crush the head of Satan.

This is what we celebrate in Advent: that person is Jesus who crushes Satan by overcoming sin and death and giving us poor broken people forgiveness of the sin of our first parents. We look foward to the would to repair us. God the Father had made us good, Satan had made us evil, and now Christ would make us good again.

Happy Advent.

Pastor Zimmer