First Mom

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

Genesis 3:20

Many of us have learned valuable lessons from our moms, as we recognize Mother’s Day this Sunday. There are also some wonderful lessons to be learned from Eve – the first mom, and the mother of all the living. Genesis 3:20, as written above, gives answers to some helpful questions.

For example, how many of you who are married, actually married a relative?

Answer: 100%

Yes, strange as it may sound, we’re all related through great-great-grandma Eve. Just look around. You’re living in a world of distant cousins … through Eve … and later through Noah and his family. Ever family has one weird cousin. If everyone around you looks pretty normal, you must be the weird one.

How many different races are there in the world?

Answer: One.

Scientists once went down the horrid and misguided track of trying to break down mankind into many different races to find the one that was closest to the apes. The result of that misguided teaching still lingers with us today. Christianity and the Bible have always taught that there is only one race of people — the human one.

Was Eve the perfect mother?

Answer: No.

It is true that Eve was the perfect woman for a little while, as she lived with Adam in the Garden of Eden. But the key word is that she WAS the perfect woman. God’s Word remembers Eve for being the first to taste of the forbidden fruit. We don’t know exactly what kind of fruit Eve and then Adam ate. But the author of the children’s book “A is for Adam” shows the fruit looking like tiny hand grenades. That’s a pretty good comparison. For Romans 5:12 records: “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”

Did God love Eve even after she had disobeyed?

Answer: Yes.

In the same chapter in which we read that Eve and Adam sinned, we find the Lord making clothes for them out of the skins of animals. Those animals had done nothing wrong. They were innocent victims of the sin that had come into the world through the first couple.

Can God love you, even though you haven’t been the perfect son or daughter, father or mother? The good news of the Bible is that an innocent life went to the cross in the person of Jesus Christ, so that Eve and Adam, and all imperfect mothers (and fathers, daughters and sons) could know God’s forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.

Erma Bombeck was a mother, homemaker, and humorous writer, who shared that she had spent much of her life fighting dirt. Erma shared: “You begin cleaning at one end of your house . . .and work your way to the other end of the house . . .and when you get done . . .it’s time to start over. And what is the reward at the end of your life, she asked? Six feet of dirt. The dirt wins.”

Thankfully, the good news of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead – which was celebrated by multitudes over a month ago on Easter – is that Jesus overcame dirt and the grave. A covering of dirt in a cemetery is not the end.

God kept the promise He had made in the Garden of Eden to Eve that He would one day send a Savior. That Savior would also have a Mom, named Mary.

That descendant of the first Mom, named Jesus, promises, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).

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