The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is one that I return to time and again – because there I never cease to discover new grace and new meaning. While I could probably write an entire series of articles on this story, I will limit myself to two. In this first one, we will look at the grace of the story and in the second we will look at the grace within the story.
For me, the grace of this story is how it points us to that which we long for. So, what do I mean by that? Well, as good Methodists, we believe in God’s prevenient grace. We believe that God is with us and guiding us before we even realize that that is what is going on. Like most of us, I don’t recall anything from my first couple of years on this earth. I like to believe, though, that I and all newly created humans know God intimately at that age. I believe that at that point we know from whence we came and to whence we will one day return.
And then life happens. Like Adam and Eve who eventually found themselves being pushed out of the Garden, we get pushed into the “real” world and begin to lose that connection with the Divine. As I will discuss in the next article, I believe this disconnection is necessary. For now, though, I want to focus not on why it is necessary but on the effects of the disconnection – and on how this story is filled with the grace of God within that disconnection.
It would be presumptuous of me to speak on behalf of all humanity, so I will speak of my own experience and let you see how it resonates with your own. From very early on, I sensed that there was something more than the world into which I had been born. I remember lying in the back seat of our family car (back before seatbelts were required) and staring up into the night sky watching the moon and the stars stay pretty much in place while we little humans made our way home from wherever we had spent our day. My soul felt drawn to the “out there,” to whatever it was that held it all together and kept it in place.
I don’t have enough space in this short article to take you on the whole journey, but suffice it to say that my life has indeed been a journey in search of that something more, which I intuitively knew existed. Like the Magi following the star toward Bethlehem, I found myself at times wandering a bit off track (okay, sometimes more than a bit!), sometimes being misdirected by others, and sometimes (by the grace of God) more intentionally focused on the goal (even though I wasn’t yet certain of what that goal actually was).
That’s where this story of the Garden of Eden comes in. When I read it through the lens of grace (rather than that of sin and judgment), I realize that it is reminding me of whence I came and to whence I am to return. My goal, I came to realize, is to return to that intimate relationship with God that Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden. My goal is to walk with God daily, to seek God’s counsel, and to enjoy the fullness of God’s creation along with God.
The grace of this story is to lead us back to that which is our true purpose – loving relationship with God and one another. This grace is expanded by the grace of the gospel we receive through Jesus Christ, for the gospel tells us that we can enter into that way of life here and now. While we may not experience its fullness on this side of death, we can enjoy it to the best of our human ability now – because that is God’s desire, too. The only difference is: God never forgets it. We, on the other hand, need the grace of stories like the Garden of Eden to remind us of what we have forgotten along the way.
Rev. Joyce Day
If you would like to view past editions of Grace for the Journey, follow this link: https://sounddistrictnc.org/category/grace-for-the-journey/