The very first Mother’s Day

After reading the title, there is no doubt many of you suppose I am poised to go back nearly 100 years and recant how a lady named Anna Jarvis set out on a campaign to make the honoring of motherhood a part of the American social fabric, and then from there go on to suggest a few ways how we might honor the mothers in our lives. But while Anna Jarvis is worthy of remembrance for such a noble contribution to our society, you would be only partly right, for the very first Mother’s Day is found in Genesis 3 where “Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”

For those of you who cannot bear the thought of a literal interpretation of Genesis, especially the first 10 chapters because of what they do to your theory of evolution, I cannot help you. The truth of the matter is that not only did the Apostle Paul believe that Adam was literally the very first man God ever created, he also went so far as to call Jesus Christ the “last Adam” in I Corinthians 15. And then in Romans 5 he says of Adam that he is “the figure of him (Christ) that was to come.”

Thus, without a literal Adam there is no literal Christ, no literal crucifixion, no literal resurrection and no hope of any life after death.

That’s why I say we must go back to Genesis 3 for the very first Mother’s Day, because as Adam is a figure of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ died for sinners, who did Adam die for?

The Bible is clear: By one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin. In other words, though Eve ate of the forbidden fruit first, sin could not enter the world without Adam’s eating of the fruit. And Paul says in I Timothy 2 that while Eve had been deceived into eating the fruit, Adam was not. Adam made a deliberate, conscious choice to disobey God.

While we cannot know what all went through Adam’s mind in contemplating the decision, what we do know is that Adam did not fully understand the full consequences of that decision. Even though the devil told Eve that their eyes would be opened, their nakedness came to them as a complete surprise. Thus, Adam chose to share a fate, which he did not fully understand, with this woman, his wife, who had been deceived.

But why would he be willing to die with Eve? Perhaps he thought that since she was the only woman that God had created, that she would be the only woman God would ever create?

In Genesis 2, when God put Adam in the garden, God formed every bird and animal out of the dust of the ground to demonstrate that he was Adam’s Creator. As Adam named each one, not only did he seem to notice that they all came in two genders, but he noticed that there was no counterpart for himself among them. And when Eve did come along, God had made only one.

The truth is that as God had created Eve, he could have created another.

But whether this ever entered Adam’s mind or not is of no consequence since we know that Jesus died for sinners because of his great love for us. And since Adam is a figure of Christ, then we must conclude that he chose to share her fate because of his great love for her. A love quite possibly measured in hours or days rather than years.

But Adam went one better even than this, for to die with is not the same as to die for. As Jesus came and shared our fate of death in robing himself in human flesh, he also died for us. The Bible says that he “tasted death for every man.”

Adam, too, died for the one he loved so much. While his death could not redeem her soul, yet without it would leave her alone, without hope of any redemption.

If Eve alone had eaten the forbidden fruit, then she alone could have suffered eternal punishment, and God could have replaced her, but because of a man who loved her very much, and gave up his life for her, it then became possible for God to send Jesus to redeem him and her, and all the rest of mankind.

Thus, the very first Mother’s Day gift was the gift of life from her husband, and then her name in recognition of motherhood.

Even so, husbands are admonished to love their wives as their own bodies. Gentlemen, what will be your gift this year? For those of you out there who cannot call the mother of your children your wife, a good place to begin is at the alter.

And for you young people out there, instead of that card, why don’t you start honoring her starting today, and do it every day, rather than just the one day you feel you have to.

Ron Hamman is pastor for Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla. Contact him at 357-4229.