For Eve

Telling this story is hard. It’s hard because it’s unfathomable to us. From perfection to utter isolation. To have been with God and then felt His absence... How do we even begin to imagine what that felt like?

Eve experienced two extremes: pure joy & pure grief.

I like to believe that Adam and Eve were the epitomai of childlike wonder. They were children, delighting in everything their Father had created. I think God walked with Adam and Eve but I also think He scampered and raced and galloped in the garden with them. I believe they joked and played games and laughed. And then, when they were tired, they would be refreshed by the water as they sat in the shade of a tree and listened to God speak.

Maybe that idea of God in the garden is too simple. But I think it's easy to instinctively view Adam and Eve as adults strolling past trees in deep theological debate with God. It's entirely possible they did that, but I think even more so they just delighted in each other's presence. Adam and Eve were brand new beings. They didn't have any adult roles to fulfill because those expectations hadn't been set yet. They were just full of wonder, full of love, and full of curiosity.

How then do we begin to know joy like that? How do we dig into that deep and personal union with our Father? I suppose we won't understand it until we ourselves are standing in the presence of God. But I think moments of happiness, moments of closeness with God and humans and animals, moments when a warm wind whirls around you in a nurturing hug. Moments like those are the tastes we get to pure happiness and joy.

But Eve's story doesn't end in this beautiful moment of delight. The moment falls apart. Sin enters the world. We do know what it's like to live in a world of sin, a world without the direct presence of God. We can taste disappointment, discouragement, and the absence of something loved and lost. We know the impact time makes on those emotions and experiences. We can know what it's like to make a seemingly irredeemable mistake. But Eve knew the presence of God so the lack was that much harder. In many ways, I think we are blessed to only know the effects of the fall. We can look forward to something greater than we can imagine. Eve on the other hand knew what she was missing for the rest of her life. Oh to spend mere days in the presence of God and then years upon decades separated from Him.

The heartbeat of Eve’s story is her desire to be God, whether it was momentary or long-suffering, I don't know. But she had a desire to control the outcome and not be held back. I’ve struggled with this desire, maybe I’m the only one, but I think not.

“Eve” literally means “living”. She lives in the joy of life with God and she lives in the result of her sin. But the point is that she isn’t doomed to hell. I want to be clear: while Eve starts in paradise and ends on earth, her story doesn’t finish there. The end of Eve’s story in this musical, and I believe in all time, is reunification with God and the promise that despite it all, He loves her. He treasures her. He fights for her. And He remains faithful to her.