And so the man and the woman, exiled from paradise with the wilderness before them, begin to wait for a baby who will be born of a virgin in stable in Bethlehem. He will be the one who can resist the serpent’s tempting, though it strikes his heel. He will choose a death of a different sort, crushing with finality the head of the serpent, forever defeating death through dying on a tree on a hill outside Jerusalem.

We are the people of the Resurrection living in the land of the dying, exiles like Israelites in Babylon, citizens of another Kingdom, oppressed like the Jews under Roman rule, living under a puppet king whose name is Death. And yet our hope remains in our true King who is coming soon to bring his Kingdom to bear on this fallen world and to expose Death for the lie that it is.