Yearning for Eden

Bittersweet is such a truthful word. This week was a reminder in several ways of bittersweetness. A reminder of saying too much and saying too little. Of words misunderstood. Of memories of friends no longer heard from, and loved ones who passed away. It seems like there are a lot of memories of loss that surround the few weeks on either side of Christmas, and even those separated further from the date are all the more fresh at this time.

I think one of the best things I got out of Covenant Theology this fall was a point Dr. Collins drove home numerous times over the course of the semester. I'm familiar enough with the details of the Garden of Eden, but I don't think I ever internalized them — understood them — until this fall. He made it clear that at least part of the object of the story is to show us what we yearn for, what we were made for, what should be. What was. I guess I moved over the text too fast in the past.

Our future hope in Christ is not a hope for a new creation, so much as it is a hope for a restoration. The pain that exists is a yearning for something very specific. We are yearning for Eden. We groan for Eden. In Eden hope for restoration would not be necessary, because nothing would be broken, disconnected, alienated, dissolved, regretted.

Perhaps it is appropriate in preparation for celebrating our Savior's birth that past pain comes to the surface and even new pain springs forth. We yearn for Eden. He that restores us, came so that our yearnings would not be for naught.

For now, though, I yearn for Eden.