Welcome to the Unveiled video series.
My name is Micah and I’m the artist behind the drawings and paintings you can find in the book, Unveiled.
In this series, Clare Hayns will help us to explore and learn from some of the lives and stories of women in the Old Testament,
with the help of Matilda and Megan who you will see in some of our later videos.
In our first video of the series, we’ll start at the very beginning, with the first woman: Eve.
It seems right and proper to begin any series on women in the Old Testament
right at the very beginning. In a garden.
With the first woman. Eve.
The story of Eve has at its heart a choice But before we look at this, I’d like us to think
about all the choices that make up who we are now. Some of these were made before we were even born.
The choice our parents made which led to us being created.
The choices that were then made about our upbringing, our schooling, where we lived,
what was expected of us. No doubt a mix of good and bad within all of that.
We will then have made defining choices at various stages of our lives.
Our careers, who we share our lives with, what we focus on, how we spend our money.
As I said, the story of Eve has at its heart a choice.
In the Genesis story of creation, we hear of ‘woman’ created
alongside ‘man’, both made in the image of God. God set an abundant creation before them for their
enjoyment, and they were blessed and commissioned to care for it, and given the freedom to enjoy it all,
with one exception, ‘of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’.
Eve has a choice. Does she abide by what God has said,
or does she follow the voice of the serpent who tells her that if she eats she ‘will be like God,
knowing good and evil’?
The fruit looked ‘good’ and ‘was a delight to the eyes’, so Eve decided to eat.
So often Eve is blamed for causing ‘the fall’,
a term not actually mentioned in the Bible, but which describes the rupture
between humanity and God.
Is that fair?
I wonder if it’s more helpful to view Eve as the first rather than the cause.
She was the first to make a choice which had repercussions causing pain and a breakdown in a
relationship. She was certainly not the last. Every human being at one stage or another
will have made choices which have caused pain and separation.
Most of us do this, to a greater or lesser extent, every day.
It's part of being human.
After they had eaten the fruit, Eve and Adam become fearful.
They began to blame one another and hide from God. The world that was abundant and beautiful now
included pain and suffering.
Eve may have been the first to choose independence from God,
but she was also the first to have been in relationship with God,
to walk with God, to hear God’s voice.
Like Eve, each one of us has been created
in the image of God and given a glorious world to inhabit.
Poet Mary Oliver writes: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’
We too have choices: how we live, who we love and what we do with our one wild and precious life.
And perhaps as we make these, we can remember that in all of the joys,
pains, good choices and bad choices that make up a human life, God never abandons us.
God continues to walk alongside us, offering a restored relationship and giving us the choice
to follow or not, and loving us regardless.
At the heart of Eve’s story is a choice.
What significant choices have you made to bring you to where you are today?
God of all creation, in whose image all human beings are made,
help us to choose to live lives that radiate your love. Amen