In July 2022, U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas was chairing a conference in Bilbao, Spain. The car he was in was traveling down a dark stretch of highway and crashed due to a wild boar that had wandered into the road. The Congressman was taken to a hospital where it was discovered that he had cancer. Fortunately for Representative Castro it was a very treatable form of cancer, but even more fortunate for him was the car wreck that led to its discovery. As strange as it may sound, his misfortune was actually quite fortunate.
For several years my wife and I have loved listening to the music of Audrey Assad. In fact, it is rare for our Sunday morning not to begin with her song “I Shall Not Want”. It’s become a sort of Sunday morning prayer in our home. Admittedly, that is my favorite of her songs, but recently another one has been demanding space in my heart and attention in my thoughts. The song is “Fortunate Fall” and the lyrics are simply four lines repeated four times.
Oh happy fault, oh happy fault
That gained for us, so great a Redeemer
Fortunate fall, fortunate fall
That gained for us, so great a Redeemer
Something doesn’t have to be lengthy to be profound — something I would do well to learn — and this brief stanza gripped my thoughts and has refused to let go. We often speak of Genesis 3 and refer to it as the fall of man or the original sin. Most are familiar with this story. God said do not eat of the tree, Adam and Eve ate of the tree, the door of disregarding God’s will and wisdom was opened and very soon all manner of evil came in. The consequences of our ancient ancestor Adam’s actions are still plaguing us today….shame, fear, pain, division, death. Just as the Judeans loved to taunt their northern neighbors, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Perhaps we wonder, can anything good come out of the fall of man? I have come to understand, yes, yes it can.
Whenever something piques my interest, I have a tendency to delve into it obsessively and try to learn everything I can about it while the zeal of curiosity fuels me. What I uncovered after I discovered this song was that it was actually quite ancient, like 1,700 years old ancient. These lyrics first appear in the 4th century Catholic Paschal Vigil Mass Exsultet: O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem, "O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer." Talk about a deep cut cover song, well done Ms. Assad.
The technical term is “Felix Culpa”, Latin for happy/lucky/blessed or as Audrey Assad put it, fortunate fall. It is one of the many paradoxes in the Bible — the first shall be last, the least will be the greatest, those who lose their life will save it, etc. Felix Culpa is about the fortunate consequences of an unfortunate event. It is a reminder that there is nothing broken which cannot be redeemed by God. Augustine of Hippo remains one of the most brilliant minds in Christian theology and in the fourth century he wrote, “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.”
Please don’t mistake God’s will for God’s working. God never intends or desires for anyone to do that which is contrary to Him, and yet, part of what makes God, well, God, is His ability and willingness to take our mess and create a masterpiece. Have you ever watched one of those cooking shows where chefs are given very few, and often random, ingredients, only to witness them create amazing dishes? That’s God. Yes, our ancestor Adam and his near descendants made a mess of God’s good creation, and that is when God stepped in and began creating a masterpiece. It is because of this fall that we were able to witness the full depth, the magnitude and the majesty of God’s love through the life and death of Jesus.
Padre Pio, an Italian Capuchin friar who died in 1968, once said, “Blessed is the crisis that made you grow, the fall that made you gaze up to Heaven, the problem that made you look up to God.” This is precisely why the gospel is good news. God turns our mess into a masterpiece in Him. Have you ever messed up? Did you make an even bigger mess when you tried to clean it up on your own? I’ve been there. But I’ve also, as the old gospel song says, brought Christ my broken life, so stained by sin, and He created a new and made whole again, my empty wasted years He did restore. Fortunate fall that gained for us so great a Redeemer.
A reading from Romans 7-8
Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus…What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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