Christmas and Eve

How the best gift of all
completes us and transforms us

 
It may be a whole lot more necessary to remember the real reason for the season this year, 2020.

That’s because many of us will have to experience the pain of social distancing by feet or miles, as healthy decisions prevail during the holiday break.

Consequently, the usual Martha-like busyness as we prepare for guests and traditions will come to a rest—allowing us to celebrate the birth of Jesus without hustle or bustle, dashing or deeding.

However, this presents us with a unique opportunity! It begs us to press even more into the gift of Jesus. As David Bryant says, we get to pause to “meet him again for the first time.”

“Let us then come with confidence to the throne of grace,
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
(Hebrews 4:16)

So, let’s take some time to ponder the gift of another Eve at Christmas.

 
Recently, God reminded me of how easy it is to lose focus on the most important gifts set before us, such as the first woman that ever lived—the original virgin—Eve.

In the Garden of Eden, God saw that Adam was socially distanced from human company, and his Creator knew it wasn’t good for him.

He answered man’s cry for help by supplying the gift of Eve, commissioning her to a ministry of “helps,” we’re told. But what does “helps” mean?

Bible teacher and commentary writer Solomon Mekonnen was my guest on a recent Greenelines podcast. We discussed the life of Eve and what many Christians miss about her.

Most recall only that she was guilty of picking a forbidden fruit, but many of us are guilty of sin-picking decisions every day. It’s so easy to focus on the sin of others and totally miss the sinner’s gifts and calling.

“The narrative about Eve is probably one of the most misunderstood or wrongly labeled facts of biblical history—because we simply pick up only the last aspect of what she did on her way out of paradise,” Mekonnen says.

“We know her only as Eve, who was the initial cause for the fall. And I do think that is a disservice—and absolutely the wrong perception.

“I’m not saying she wasn’t the cause of the fall, but that’s not what she is all about.

“The book of Genesis gives us the reason why God created Eve,” Mekonnen continues. “He created Eve to be a helpmate to Adam. He created her to meet a need—to complement Adam. Few people look at Eve as a complementary creation, as one God gave to meet the need of another, to take away the loneliness.”

The fact is, without Eve, Adam was incomplete. Without Eve, we are all incomplete.

 
“So, the point is this: With Adam, the first thing he realized was that she was a gift to him from God, to complement him, to fulfill him, and to become his helpmate,” Mekonnen says.

“And so, she is an image-bearer, a steward, uniquely a helpmate—complementary in order that  Adam might become complete.”  Adam had nowhere else to turn but to Eve.

Mekonnen concludes: “Because we have focused so much on the Fall, we have forgotten the original purpose for which Eve is created. We have actually caused pain and suffering to women—we continue to hurt her daughters over the generations.

“Many women today often feel misunderstood and slighted instead of acknowledged for their invaluable, irreplaceable contributions to the church, even to all of life itself—to the very giving of life.

“Yet despite it all, the offspring of Eve, for the most part, and in most of the different periods of human existence, continue still to be the helpmates—the completers, as it were—especially while doing the work of giving birth, raising a family or partnering with a husband.”

At Christmastide, the gift of the first Eve is a picture of the greatest gift of all.

 
Just like the gift of Eve herself has been dishonored and discounted, the gift the wise men worshiped also was rejected by the world. Unwise men still reject him and the gifts Jesus offers us—the gift that Jesus himself is—just as we ignore today the essential and immeasurable gift from God that women are.

But believers, male and female, who celebrate the birth of Christ know that, just like Eve, the gift of Jesus keeps on giving. The meaning of her name, Eve, is “living one” and “source of life”—just like Jesus has now become forever the fountain of eternal life for all who trust in him.

Eve was a helper. Even so, Jesus will not leave us without help. Nor will he forsake us. Knowing he would return to the Father, Jesus promised to send us the third person of the Triune God, the one Jesus called a Helper, a Comforter. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, that he may be with you forever” (John 14:16). You might translate the Greek word for a “Helper” as a “Completer.”

Just like Eve was committed to completing Adam, so the Scriptures tell us how Jesus does the same thing for all who belong to him, but on a whole other level, as we read in Colossians 2:9-10 (Phillips translation, emphasis added).

Yet it is in him that God gives a full and complete expression of himself…
Moreover, your own completeness is only realized in him,
who is the authority over all authorities, and the supreme power over all powers.

That is what makes one of the names for Jesus at his birth—Immanuel—so meaningful when we read:

“Now all this occurred to fulfill
what the Lord had spoken through the prophet, saying,
‘A virgin shall be with child, and will bear a Son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel,’
which is interpreted, ‘God with us.’”
(Matthew 1:22-23)

“God with us”—our Redeemer Lord is not only the living God who has come among us, as one of us, to deliver us and reign over us; he is also the God who has come to fill us, fulfill us, restore us—and in so doing to complete us.

As we contemplate the Christmas of 2020—one that will be like no other—let us remember that the gift of a Savior was born to give us second birth, which includes this: He has come to us to HELP us and SERVE us and RESCUE us and BLESS us—and in so doing to COMPLETE us and TRANSFORM us.

To the uttermost, for the entire universe, Jesus amplifies the mission of Eve—not just for Adam but for the redeemed of all the ages. For you and for me.

So, on this Christmas Eve, let’s determine that we will worship Jesus as the greater “Eve“—and in so doing, meet him again for the first time.

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About the Author

Dr. Steve Greene is the publisher of Charisma, Ministry Today, SpiritLed Woman, and Christian Retailing magazines. He received his doctorate degree in marketing from Memphis State University and has served as the dean of the College of Business and a professor of marketing at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While in Tulsa, he also served as the senior pastor of Bixby Community Church. Dr. Greene has owned restaurants, a national advertising agency, and a syndicated market research firm. He is a nationally known speaker and trainer in the fields of marketing and leadership. His podcasts can be heard at www.cpnshows.com. Watch the book trailer for his book LOVE LEADS at http://loveleadsbook.com/.