Eve of Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day as we know it today is highly commercialized: flowers, greeting cards, parties, meals in fancy restaurants, and phone calls (more than any other day of the year) for mom.

I plead guilty to this state of disrepair. In advertising, my career for years, we hyped Mother’s Day to boost our clients’ sales. We crafted touching phrases so people would feel some kind of guilt if they scrimped on gifts for their Mom. Manipulative? But my heart cried, Mothers ought to be honored for their unconditional, sacrificial love sans gongs and cymbals.  

Celebrating mothers goes back to the beginning of time—to the first mother on earth: Eve. 

Called the mother of all the living, Eve was different from all of us—she came from a man and had no mother. All women after her came from a mother. 

The first human to fall into sin, Eve understood and suffered loss: loss of innocence when she disobeyed God in Eden; loss of paradise when God sent her and Adam out of the garden; loss of her son Abel when he was murdered by Cain. Worst of all, loss of close relationship with God. 

In Genesis 3:20, we read. “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” Let’s summarize what this means: 

1. The mother of all the physically living 

God commanded Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it." From them would come all other human beings. 

But sin intervened. In Genesis 3, God pronounced a curse upon Eve, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing.” And He told Adam that he would return to the ground from which he was taken. 
Yet, even with that death sentence, there was hope: Eve would experience pain in childbearing, but would bear children to be the mother of all human race.  

2. The mother of all the spiritually living

To the serpent, God said in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.” Spiritual battle! There would be war between the offspring of the serpent, Satan (those who oppose God and His will) and the offspring of Eve (humanity that obeys God).  

What began in Eden continued with Eve’s Cain and Abel, and then Eve’s third seed, Seth, who named his son, Enosh. “At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.” (Genesis 4:26) 

Eve’s godly seed is represented by Seth’s offspring and wicked seed (those who disobey God), by Cain’s offspring.

3. The mother of Christ the Savior 

Eve would become the mother of Christ. God prophesied Christ when He told the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

When Eve and Adam sinned, they were separated from God. Because of His grace, God sent sinful men a Savior: Jesus. That Savior would come through the offspring of Eve.

Satan struck at Jesus’ heel (crucifixion) but Jesus crushed Satan’s head (dying for our sins on the cross and freeing us from Satan and death), so that we could live with God forever.

In celebrating Mother’s Day, may we reflect on the blessings that have come to all mothers through Eve. Like her, we have suffered over losses of various kinds. But the joy of motherhood outweights them all! 

Photo credit (top):  Andreus of iStock; (collage) Pinterest