Advent: Jesus wins

Tonight we began celebrating Advent: reflecting on the first arrival of Jesus and anticipating the return of Jesus.

At bedtime we read Genesis 3:14-15, "The LORD God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

I reminded the kids of God creating Adam and Eve in perfect relationship with himself.  When I asked the kids what Adam and Eve did, they replied, "they sinned."  Kara then added, "did they sin because they were born with a sin nature?"  (one of our catechism questions is about the sin nature) I tried to explain that Adam and Eve did not have a sin nature but Kara wanted to know, "but why did they sin?"  I sadly declared that Adam and Eve chose to sin when they chose to love themselves more than God.

When I finally got back to Genesis 3, I explained that Satan is our enemy and he wants us to love ourselves more than God, just like Adam and Eve did.  We cannot resist or defeat Satan by ourselves.  That's why God sent Jesus to be our savior and our king.  Satan bruised the heel of Jesus when Jesus died on the cross.  Satan thought he won the victory. 

But when I asked the kids if Jesus stayed dead, they started singing Christ is Risen by Matt Maher.  Jesus is alive!  Jesus is our savior!  Jesus is our king!  Jesus wins!  Jesus is coming back to destroy Satan and complete his work of redemption and rescue us from the presence of sin and satisfy us in His presence forever and ever.

Jesus wins!

engraving by Hieronymus Wierix in 1585