Eve

In the last post, one of the things I looked at as part of the legacy of Joseph Smith was a corrected view of the place of women.  (If you didn't follow its link to the post "Eden's purposes" and my poem about Eve, here's another chance if you want, for a more comprehensive look.)

This week is the last lesson for Relief Society Institute on the Doctrine & Covenants.  We are studying section 138 , which is the vision of the redemption of the dead, which Joseph F. Smith, son of the martyred Hyrum Smith, received near the end of his life. It describes the President reading in I Peter, as follows:

[chap.3:]18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

[chap.4:] 6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

 He understood the principle of vicarious work in the temples, he had preached it, he had performed it, but he pondered how Jesus in those three days between his death and resurrection could have gone to so many; and this vision opened up to him, that the "noble and great" ones were organized and sent.  Christ did not go into the darkness where the wicked were.  President Smith lists many who were there ready to go and preach, including Isaiah, whose image of proclaiming liberty to the captives was the scripture Jesus read before the congregation in Nazareth and declared himself.

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

That touches me, as I have had some experiences of feeling that liberty come to the person I have acted on behalf of in the temple ordinances.  I have also been the brokenhearted, bound up in love and healing.  Isaiah, Elijah, all the prophets and the faithful elders were joyously ready to go forth.

But there is another singular point.  Read these two verses:

38 Among the great and mighty ones who were assembled in this vast congregation of the righteous were Father Adam, the Ancient of Days and father of all,

39 And our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God.

Our glorious Mother Eve.  Not a grudging inclusion, not a secondary station in any way.  Adam stands as the Ancient of Days, to whom all priesthood keys will be returned when Christ comes, to be given back to the Savior.  Both of our preeminent parents, standing in a point of honor in the spirit world in this vision, ready to take the message of joy to their posterity.

Once in our temple class, we were explaining that Michael, who helped Jehovah create this earth, was Adam.  I described this as the archetypal illustration of priesthood, as Jehovah and Michael go down to form the earth by assignment and under the authority of God.  The sister asked me a question no one had ever asked before:  if Adam was down making the earth with Jehovah, what was Eve doing?  Just sitting around and watching?  Did she have a part in this?

It wasn't a question I had ever really thought about, but in that instant I had a sudden image, as if from a distance, of a large group of people gathering in towards a figure poised to receive them, and I said, Eve was teaching those who would be born, so that those who would come after her would be ready to take their appointed times.  She was giving final instruction, as they looked at the planet, then the Garden, taking shape.

Maybe she was wondering, as we all must have, if she would be able to fill her role, find her way, after the veil was drawn over memory.  We know that she did all that she was meant to do, and became indeed the Mother of All Living, an example to emulate, not a failure to scorn.