Mary Consoles Eve
by Rev. Jack King

December 20, Sunday – Psalms 24, 29, 8, 84; Gen. 3:8–15; Rev. 12:1–10; John 3:16–21
(ESV Daily Office Readings Online)

Eve and Mary will be united forever.

After the Fall, in the moment of Eve’s shame and the announcement of the curse she would bear, Eve could not have imagined redemption beyond the curse. God proclaimed that Eve would experience great suffering in childbearing (Genesis 3.15). Adam would be cursed with a different kind of labor—the toil of painful work all his days. This was the moment suffering entered the human family. The next generation would not bring redemption, but further suffering and agony for Adam and Eve. Cain murdered Abel, setting a dreadful course of division and violence within the human family. Where and when would redemption, the removal of the curse, be found?

In a backwater town called Nazareth, that’s where. In Nazareth, a teenage girl has no idea she will participate in God’s cosmic saga of salvation. Then the angel Gabriel appears proclaiming God’s favor over Mary. Mary, a pure virgin, will conceive the Son of God by the Holy Spirit. She will know agony in the childbearing just as her ancient mother, Eve, had known. Her son will know deep and profound agony, too. Yet the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the second Adam, will reverse the curse of the first Adam. ‘For God did not not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’ (John 3.17).

Where Eve suffered a curse through disobedience, Mary has prepared the way for redemption through her obedience. Where Eve became suspicious of the Creator God and his goodness, Mary trusted the faithfulness of God. In Mary’s beautiful hymn, the Magnificat, the Virgin Mother sang of the Lord: ‘His mercy is on those who fear him, throughout all generations…He, remembering his mercy, has helped his servant Israel, as he promised to our fathers, Abraham and his seed forever.’ (Luke 1.43-55, italics mine).

I hear the Virgin Mother singing of mercy for all generations, including the first generation of Israel’s parents, Adam and Eve.

As we read these passages on Sunday, holding them together with the story of Mary’s visitation by Gabriel and her beautiful Magnificat, we can see how God redeems all things in ‘the fullness of time.’ In this beautiful image of Mary consoling Eve, we can hear the psalmist’s song, ‘You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness’ (Psalm 30.11).

We also hear this story beautifully expressed in a new song, Mary Consoles Eve, composed for this Advent season by Katy Bowser, Flo Paris, and Sandra McCracken. You can listen to this song below. Lyrics are printed below the media player.

Eve, my sister 
The one who took the fall 
Eve, my sister 
Mother of us all 
Lift up your head 
Don’t hide your blushing face 
The promised One 
Is finally on His way 

Almost, not yet, already 
Almost, not yet, already 

Eve, it’s Mary 
Now I’m a mother too 
The child I carry 
A promise coming true 
This baby comes to save us from our sin 
A servant King, His kingdom without end 

Almost, not yet, already 
Almost, not yet, already 

He comes to make his blessings flow 
As far and wide as the curse is found 
He comes to make His blessings flow 

Almost, not yet, already, 
Almost, not yet, already…soon 

Eve, my sister 
The one who took the fall 
Eve, my sister 
Mother of us all 
The promised One 
Is finally on His way

And this is the inheritance of all generations who, like Mary, welcome the Lord Jesus to dwell within: joy comes to lift our curse of shame and guilt. Thanks be to God for the wonderful mystery of his salvation story!