Loving God, for all You share, I thank you for the life of this your son/daughter. Grant to them Your blessing, in Christ's Name, amen.
Happy (belated) Mother's Day to you! In honor of this special day, my sermon today as we started the new series, Yoked: A Quick Study in The Book of Acts, we started with Lydia, the "seller of purple" from Acts 16. We'll look at Lydia a bit later in the week, but for today, being Mother's Day Monday, we look at the mother of all mothers, Eve.
Eve is the name Adam gave to her. The story tells of Eve being the crowning present of all living creatures brought to the man, when God said it was not good for him to be alone. Not a suitable companion or helper or companion or partner was found among all the living animals. God knew it and the man was smart enough to know it. And to make this crowning gift even more special for the man, the story is that she came out of the man himself. The story is that God caused a deep sleep to come upon the man and while he slept, God performed a cosmic surgery and removed one of the ribs from the man and from that rib God formed a woman. From that special cage that guards the heart, came the achievement God intended for the man. She turned out to be as playful and mischievous as the man, going with him on daily exploration walks, walking alongside the man in the evening as the two of them walked with God. She even went so far as to accompany the man to the very spot God had warned them about, and it may have been her who said that they could not even touch the forbidden tree, for God never said such a thing. She as well as the man, were tempted by the serpent, and both succumbed to that temptation to become as God.
This first woman, as well as this first man, give us a clue that there is no one perfect in the pages of the Bible, except He who was God's Son. She was made as the one who enjoyed and explored life and when the time came, bore the children, also not at all perfect, of the man. Through her life with Adam, Eve quickly and sadly, learned all about life: the joys, the sorrows, the laughter, and the tears. Through her life and teaching, she also taught the children about God and how to worship and give to God, all too quickly coming to know the deep pain of death. She lived a full life, but sadly we don't know anything more about her except when she bore Adam's their third child, Seth.
Eve is like that distant figure in the old photos hanging in our grandparents' home, where only her name is mentioned and not much else is known. She, like the figure, smiles a demure smile, lips closed almost to the point of not saying much beyond her having had to have posed for the photo. Yet, she is ours, just like that figure in the photograph; whether she was good or bad, she bore someone, who bore someone, who ultimately bore us. And because of that we are alive and we should be thankful.
PRAYER: On this special day, dear God, we praise You and thank You for life and for those of our moms who bore us and gave us life. We celebrate the moms who are still with us and we pray comfort for those who today sensed the loss of moms more than normal. We thank You for those in our photographs, whose lives we know little or nothing about, but we claim them and honor them. Let me today be a person who makes a meaningful memory in the life of those around me, not for my sake, but for Yours. I ask this in Jesus' Name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
