Easter Thoughts

Genesis 2 begins by describing the Seventh Day, the Sabbath, when God rested from the work of creation. But by Genesis 3 we encounter Adam and Eve’s disobedience and the tragic consequences of human sin.

As Ruth Valerio writes in her conclusion to Saying Yes to Life:

“The rest of the Bible is then the story of how God works to bring restoration: to put back to rights what has gone wrong and bring about the Sabbath rest that has been promised.”

Adam and Eve turn away from God in a garden and it is in a garden that Mary Magdalene first encounters the risen Jesus. For Christians, the First Day becomes the new Sabbath, a day not only of rest but of resurrection and restoration.

Our faith in the risen Jesus gives us hope of a future. We are creation; we will be set free in the garden of eternity.

But this hope also strengthens us to live in the world as it is – a world where there is great suffering, a world which we are called to serve and to sustain.