Commemoration of Adam and Eve

Commemoration of Adam and Eve
Saturday after Advent 3
December 19, 2009

The Lord be with you

This day has been set aside for the Commemoration of Adam and Eve on the liturgical calendar used in the LC-MS. Adam was the first man, made in the image of God and given dominion over all the earth (Genesis 1:26). Eve was the first woman, formed from one of Adam's ribs to be his companion and helper (Genesis 2:18-24). God placed them in the Garden of Eden to take care of creation as His representatives. But they forsook God's Word and plunged the world into sin (Genesis 3:1-7). For this disobedience, God drove them from the garden. Eve would suffer pain in childbirth and would chafe at her subjection to Adam; Adam would toil amid thorns and thistles and return to the dust of the ground. Yet God promised that the woman's Seed would crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:8-24). Sin had entered God's perfect creation and changed it until God would restore it again through Christ. Eve is the mother of the human race, while Adam is representative of all humanity and the fall, as the apostle Paul writes, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John Rickert