THE WAY TO THE TREE OF LIFE .....

A LENTEN PILGRIMAGE Rev.Fr.K M George 

The Return  

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“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”

(Genesis 3: 23-24).

Suppose by some unfortunate turn of events a certain man's house is confiscated. He and his family are being driven out of the home they loved and where they lived happily for many years. It is quite likely that on their way they would turn around and have a last desperate look before the house disappears from the view.Adam and Eve were in the same position. They fell from grace, and consequently they were driven out of the blessed state of paradise, the garden of Eden. They must have turned around with broken hearts to glance at their lost home. While living on earth, they continued to harbour in their hearts a deeply painful homesickness throughout their life. Humanity inherited this state as it now lives in exile on earth.We are all spiritually homesick. We find that our present reality, marked by disease, pain, suffering and death, does not give us as much joy and contentment as was given to our first parents in paradise. We deeply long to return our true home -a certain ghar wapsi[1] in the best sense of the term, far above the narrow loyalties to one religion or other.In the Orthodox tradition, we turn to the east in our public prayers and liturgy. It symbolically expresses our deep spiritual longing to return to paradise. We have a great sunrise too in the east. Jesus Christ our Saviour, " the sun of justice", has opened the gate of paradise, the way to the tree of life, where an angel had been posted, armed with a flaming, revolving sword to prohibit any re-entry.




The Lenten prayers repeatedly refer to the story of Adam and Eve losing the paradise. They also express the firm faith and hope that through our suffering in this world, through ascetic practices of fasting and constant prayer, and through mutual forgiveness and acts of compassion, on the model of Christ, the Holy Spirit will enable us to return to the house of our heavenly Father.    

So the painful forty days need to be considered as part of an intense preparation for our happy “home-coming”. In the context of the parable of the woman who lost and found her coin Jesus said:

"In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

(Luke 15:10)

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[1] Hindi word meaning “home-coming”. The word “ghar” is of Sanskrit origin meaning “home” and “wapsi” is of Persian origin, meaning “coming back”. The term has been applied to a series of religious conversion activities facilitated by certain Indian Hindu organisations.