day no. 15,175 continued... a mother's day meditation

In the beginning, God made man from the dirt of the garden. He fashion and formed him from the earth and breathed life into him. When no suitable helper could be found for Adam after naming the many animals God put Adam to sleep and removed his rib and fashioned it into a woman. So God made a woman from the rib of a man who was made from the dust of the garden. He then placed a garden within this woman and united her to her husband. The man made from the garden was married to the woman made from man who had a garden within her. The earth was broken in order to produce a man to which it was reunited and the man was broken in order to produce a woman to whom he was reunited.

When Adam sinned in listening to the voice of the woman instead of the clear instruction previously received directly from His Father in heaven, the earthly garden was plunged into destruction and sin. The earth and everything in it, the world and all those who would dwell therein would feel the repercussions of the Fall. When God began describing the ramifications, He also explained how motherhood and the garden within the woman would be critical in the restoration of all things. The womaned garden played a key role in the fall of the world and she would play a key role in its resurrection. God began by cursing the serpent for his role in deceiving the woman and bringing his deceit into the garden of Eden and the garden of the woman. And since he did, he was cursed to crawl on his belly on the physical dirt and to ultimately be crushed underfoot of the seed planted in the garden in the woman. Motherhood would be required to reverse the curse. The garden inside the woman would be the birthplace from which the fruit of righteousness and reconciliation would bloom. 

Yet the garden within the woman would also experience the effects of the Fall. Her pain in childbearing would now be multiplied. Mind you multiplication requires a pre-existing condition implying child-bearing was never going to be a painless endeavor. Her pain was to be multiplied and increased as a result of sin, not invented. Zero times anything is still zero and one times anything is merely just itself in addition. Multiplication implies a level of pain which can be multiplied. So motherhood was always meant to involve sacrificial pain being born on behalf of the other being born. Mothers were called to be a messiah of sorts before the Fall, enduring difficulty on behalf of another to bring forth new life. But this pain was only increased and multiplied at the point of the garden within as a result of falling in the garden without.

On an aside, this in some ways raises at least a elementary case for raising up at least three seeds if God should allow. When two become one and produce only one, the earth's population decreases. When two become one to produce two, the earth's population is replaced. But when two become one to produce three or more, the earth's population is multiplied and increased as a result of the two becoming one. Multiplication is produced through oneness when three or more are cultivated from the garden within the women of the man of the garden.

Adam's curse involved the ground from which he came in like fashion increasing in difficulty. It would now bear thorns and thistles and be more difficulty to work with. The garden would not produce fruit without increased suffering on behalf of the man. The garden would not give up its goodness without increased and multiplied labor. Labor and sweat were required in any event, but the amount of sweat and toil now required was increased. This applied to the ground from which Adam was taken and to the ground which now resided inside the woman who was taken from Adam's side. The amount of energy and adversity experienced in bringing up and raising godly seed from within the garden inside the woman was going to be more complicated this side of sin.

Yet in all of this motherhood would prevail. God promised it. The seed of the women would crush the seed of the serpent. And Adam believed God's promise. To this point, the woman was merely "woman." Adam had named her as he had named the lions, tigers and bears. They were named as a class or species, but not as individuals. Adam did not name the lion Aslan, the tiger Tony or the bear Smokey.  In keeping, he had named the woman simply woman because she was taken from man. But here he names her personally in response to all that has happened. And the name he gave her was, "Eve" which means the mother of the living. He recognized her garden and named her in keeping with her role in the redemptive history of the world according to God's prophesy of how the story would end. He could have named her the mother of all the dead for as a result of her sin and the Fall of man in Adam, everyone who would ever die would come through her garden within. Every seed planted there would die. But Adam believed God's promise that all flowers that die and go to seed will be resurrected in God's promises which we are told are all Yes in Jesus. In Christ, the seed of the women, the son of Eve, the serpent would be crushed. 

And so it is that Paul the apostle points out that women shall be saved by childbearing in that the Son of Man was produced by the simple obedience of motherhood. If women had neglected or rejected their high calling, the seed would not have a place to grow. If women had not given themselves to be gardens of life, they would become deserts of death, barren and dry. But through gardens planted in women, seeds were born and raised that grew up to plant seeds in other gardens until the Seed was born and raised that would put an end to the serpent's onslaught and reclaim the garden for God's glory. 

After the Fall, Adam and Ever were kicked out of the Garden until the garden within the woman would produce the Seed that would re-open the garden gates. Our entrance back to the garden was only by God's design able to be opened by way of the garden within women. And so woman's role in the Fall of man is eclipsed by her role in the redemption of man. As the woman's sin made way for Adam to Fall, the woman's Son made way for Adam to rise. The womaned garden played a key role in being evicted from God's garden and the womaned garden played a key role in being invited back into God's garden.

So Happy Mother's Day! The Gospel of God is on full display in this high calling. Through moms, He has made salvation possible and united her garden within back to His Garden in the beginning so that in the end those in her Seed shall be welcomed back to the Garden.