by Ted Dekker
“No, Saba,” I said softly. “Show me this power. Show me how to love in this way. Show me how to ask anything in his name—in his identity. How is that possible if he is dead? Even if he had not died, how is that possible? He is he and we are we.”
Another great pause. I knew he didn’t have true answers to these accusations. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.
“He said he would send us a helper to comfort us. His Spirit.”
I stared at the flames, speaking in a whisper. “Then show me his Spirit, Saba. Show me.”
“We must surrender all—”
“No, Saba. I don’t want Talya to surrender his life.” The night was perfectly quiet. “I don’t want to hold him of no account. I don’t want to hate my life or take up my cross. I just want to live in a small tent with you and Talya, away from all of this death. Is that too much to ask of a God who made me to live on this earth? Why must we suffer?”
For a long time I heard nothing but the soft popping of dying coals licked by lazy flames. Finally, Saba had no words. His silence was answer enough. And so I had no further questions.
I heard a soft, muffled sob, and I blinked. Saba’s sobs grew more pronounced and when I finally lifted my head I saw him lying on his belly with his hands over his face, weeping into the sand.
I didn’t know what to do. I had no more tears to give. I didn’t know if he was weeping for Talya or for me or for himself or for Yeshua. It didn’t matter anymore, because we had all become the same. I only knew that death could not comfort death, and that we were all dead or dying. Indeed, the moment we had been born, we had begun to die.
But when his weeping grew louder I finally pulled myself up, crawled over to him, and lay down beside him, facing the stars. There, I put my hand on his back and closed my eyes.
Slowly, after many minutes, his sobbing subsided. The night became still once again. Saba lay as though dead, and although I thought I should get up and move closer to the fire, I couldn’t find the strength.
In seven or eight hours I would rise to see my son’s execution at the hand of Kahil. How that viper would kill him, I didn’t know, and I tried desperately not to think about it.
Lying there on my back with my eyes closed, suffering with Saba, I was mercifully pulled into the deep waters of sleep.
Darkness. Sweet darkness, vacant of thought.
THE DREAM CAME to me in that darkness, and in my dream I saw a star streaking across the night sky above our camp, where I stood barefooted. Not any star, but a massive ball of fire that suddenly turned toward me, slicing through the air with lightning speed.
Surprised by its rapid approach, I came alive there in the dream, thinking it might not be a dream at all! I stepped back, heart in my throat. Surely a star could not strike me.
But it kept coming, now with a roar that shattered the still night. I had to run! It was coming too fast and directly for me.
Before I could move more than two paces, the white ball of fire covered the last of the space between us and slammed into the same dune on which I’d wept that afternoon.
A blinding flash lit the night, perfectly silent now, sending a ring of light out from that point of impact in all directions, like a ripple from a stone landing in a pool of water, only faster, much faster, turning night into day.
I could not breathe.
The moment the wave of light hit me, I felt its power blow through my chest, through my heart, through every fiber of my body, and I staggered back. I expected the roar of a consuming fire, and me in its blast, turned to ash.
Instead it filled me with a single tone. Only one note, beautiful and pure. A note I’d heard before.
Talya’s song, I thought. Eden.
I gasped, sucking the light into my lungs, and with that breath my body began to tremble. Not with fear, but with pleasure. Peace and joy as I’d never known them flooded me from the inside out.
I watched, stunned, as grass sprang from the white sand, and vines exploded with grapes, and small saplings grew into large trees heavy with green leaves. Not fifteen paces from me, the ground opened to form a well of clear blue water. On the rolling hills beyond the well were camels and lions and lambs and foxes, and other wonderful creatures that I didn’t know. Many birds flew through the sky.
All of it unfurled in the space of only a few breaths.
And with each of those breaths, I inhaled the light so that it became a part of me, and I a part of it.
This was the Eden that Talya had seen in the distance from the high ledge. But now…Now it wasn’t distant. Now I was in it, knowing it.
I suddenly knew that I had been here for a long time. I knew it as my home. I knew the man, Adam, though he was not present now. I knew the Creator, I knew the fields and the birds and the beasts, and I knew I had dominion. I knew about the tree called life and about tree of knowledge nearby, and I spun around with arms spread wide, lifting my voice to join Eden’s pure song.
Here, I experienced each note as if sung for the first time. Each breath as a miracle unto itself. Each sight as a work of wonder.
The water there in the pool drew me, so I hurried to it. The grass caressed my bare soles. I became amazed at such a simple thing as being able to walk, and I was also aware of the infinite complexity behind such a staggering experience.
This was Eden, the realm of God, and I had been fashioned in God’s likeness so that I could experience life as he would experience it.
The blue-green water in the pool glowed with light down in its depths. I stopped at the edge and gazed into the glimmering water, and as I did, words from my life outside of my dream filled my mind. Whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. From your innermost being will flow rivers of living water to life eternal. This was Yeshua’s teaching, for he was one with the Father in this realm.
I lowered myself to one knee and slowly reached out for the water. Even before my finger touched its surface, I could feel its power, a gentle vibration that warmed my fingertips.
A hiss sounded behind me and I twisted back.
Only then did I see the large black serpent with green and yellow and red stripes sliding through the grass, not ten paces from me. I stared at it, wondering at the beauty of this exotic creature. Had I seen it before?
The serpent slipped through the grass, flicking its tongue, eyeing me with golden eyes. I took a few steps toward it, but then stopped when its hiss extended and grew, louder now than the pure song in the air.
Interest pricked my mind. It was curious, because that sound both repelled me and attracted me at the same time.
It hissed again, and this time a voice filled my mind.
What is it that you shall not do?
Surprised, I blinked. But I knew the answer immediately, and I said it without thought. “I will not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at the center of the garden, lest I die.”
The serpent’s tongue flickered.
You surely will not die. If you eat, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
This was confusing to me. Wasn’t I already like God? Had he not glorified his identity by making me in his likeness?
“I am already made in his likeness. How can you say I will become what I already am if I eat the fruit of knowledge? You deceive me in saying I am not in his likeness.”
The serpent hissed, agitated, eyes flashing. It coiled as if to strike. For a few moments, it said nothing. Then it repeated itself.
You surely will not die. If you eat, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
I immediately thought of the tree of life in this garden. It gave me life. Yet the serpent said I would not die if I ate of the knowledge of good and evil. That I would be like God, though I already was.
Did he mean I would be a god myself, apart from God?
The serpent slowly opened its jaws wide. I watched, stunned, as a round fruit rolled out of its mouth and onto the grass. It was hal
f-white and half-black—not just white like the sand, but white like that star that had struck the dune. And not just black like shale, but black like a bottomless hole in one’s soul.
Fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
I was drawn to the fruit in a way that both confused me and intoxicated me at once. What had once been a mere fruit that I’d seen many times before suddenly seemed to contain fathomless power.
I was compelled to pick it up to see more closely. To touch it and feel it.
As the serpent backed away, I stooped and picked up the fruit.
The light from one half glowed around my fingers, while the darkness from the other half seemed to swallow my thumb. What power there must be in this fruit of the knowledge of darkness and light! Could I be a god myself by eating it?
A new thought crossed my mind. The will of the Creator had said not to eat, and I had always shared that will. But now I found another will pulling at me. My own.
Was I made in the likeness of the Creator? I was. So then could I place my will over his? I could. And if I did, my eyes would be opened to know more than I knew.
So I thought, not your will, but mine, and I lifted the fruit and bit deeply.
Immediately, a deep and terrifying dread washed up from my bowels and pressed through my chest, then rose up over my face and my eyes like a veil. Darkness as I had never encountered it blinded me.
I could no longer see the garden. My ears filled with a thundering silence, and I was deafened to Eden’s song.
I spun, crouching with the fruit still in my hand, terrified. From the corner of my eye, I saw the serpent dart at me from the darkness.
Before I could move, I felt its fangs strike deep into the bones of my heel. Raging pain rushed up my leg and I dropped the fruit, screaming, grasping at my leg.
But that numbing ache didn’t stop in my leg. It slammed into my hips and gathered at the base of my spine, then flashed up my back and sank deep into my mind.
Never had I felt such intense pain. I threw my hands to my head and gripped my skull, wailing in agony. But worse than the physical pain was the darkness.
The darkness of unfathomable shame. I knew then how it felt to loathe myself. I had always been transparent and naked to my Maker in this garden, but now nakedness filled me with shame and self-loathing.
And I knew then that the serpent had deceived me when it said I would not die, because I had died to the Father’s realm by becoming my own god, mastered by my own will.
Retching, I staggered for the trees and threw myself behind the foliage, terrified that I might be seen in such a state of shame. I crouched there in my own horror and self-loathing for a long time, desperate to undo what I had done. But I had no means to do so, for I was my own god of death now.
“Who told you that you were naked?”
Immediately I recognized the gentle voice, and I caught my breath. I had heard his voice always, for as long as I had been in the garden. It was the same voice I’d heard in Jerusalem—then as a thunder in my very bones, now as a gentle rain filled with compassion.
“Who opened your eyes to see that you were naked?”
I knew…I had. I had by eating the fruit. Though I had always been naked, now I was filled with shame. The fruit had changed my perception of myself and the world.
There was no more green grass visible to me. I could no longer see the light. I had been separated from the light and from love, leaving me aware only of a deep shame and self-loathing. I was in a death of my own making. Surely I deserved nothing more. I that moment, I despised the serpent as much as my own self.
“The serpent deceived me.” I wept.
“And so you have entered deception and death. In this death you cannot eat the fruit of life.”
It was true! How could death create new life? I had become a god of death. I was bound to suffering forever.
My surroundings shifted, and I saw that I was no longer in the garden. Now I was in a vast, dark wasteland of my own making. And there I wept bitterly, swallowed by remorse and loneliness, because by my own will I had separated myself from my Creator.
When I could bear my self-loathing no longer, the voice spoke again, now like a warm breeze that drifted through my mind.
“What is your name, Daughter?”
I blinked in the darkness, straining to see.
Again: “What is your name, Daughter?”
Daughter. How sweet was that word in my ears. How deep my shame for having entered darkness.
“Maviah,” I whispered through my tears.
“And what does this name mean?” he asked.
“Ancient life,” I said. “Eve.”
But of course…I was a part of the story that Judah had once told me. It came back now, fleshed out with new understanding here, in my dream.
In the beginning, the Creator had glorified his name by making man in his own likeness. Adam was the son of God, as it was written. And so I too was Eve.
The children of the Creator, Adam and Eve, had no knowledge of good and evil, only of beauty and love. There, Eve, meaning “life,” and Adam, meaning “man,” lived in perfect communion with the Father without any thought of judgment or grievance. Love, joy, and peace were their ever-present companions.
But deception had come in the form of a serpent, and they had chosen their own will over their Father’s. Eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, they had found the knowledge of light and darkness and were separated from the garden of the Father’s eternal life. So blinded, they lived in death.
I too had eaten this fruit. I too was filled with the knowledge of good and evil.
“What is the knowledge of good and evil, Maviah?”
The answer was perfectly plain to me, a woman who now judged herself as loathsome.
“Judgment,” I said, trembling.
“More,” he urged gently.
“Grievance and offense.”
“More.”
“Shame.”
“More.”
What more could there be? But then I knew, because I had once known only good. “Without the knowledge of good and evil, I would know only your glory.”
A moment of silence passed.
“And so you will share my glory again,” he said. “I will take your shame and your judgment and your offense upon myself and undo what the first Adam has done, and so I will glorify myself in you once more.”
By first Adam, he meant me as much me as Adam. Adam and I were the same.
“Have mercy on me, Father!” I sobbed, desperate to be restored. “I have fallen short of your glory and am blind to your eternal life! I am lost.”
In the way dreams work, as if my words had made it so, I found myself in the clearing again. I caught my breath. There were no trees, no animals, no life that I could see. But the serpent was still there, writhing slowly on the sand, beady eyes on me, forked tongue licking at the air.
A light came, this time not by a star, but as a white, innocent lamb without blemish that now entered the clearing.
And then I remembered the words spoken by the Baptizer in Galilee: Behold the lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.
Then I knew! The innocent lamb is Yeshua! He comes to undo my separation from God’s glory. He comes to reunite me with my Father in the eternal realm! If I, the guilty, am the first Adam, then Yeshua, the innocent, is the second Adam, as it was written.
But how? How would the second Adam restore that garden of union in me?
Memory of the garden of Gethsemane flashed through me. Gethsemane, the second garden. The two gardens and the two Adams.
In the first garden, the first Adam, me, had said, Not your will, but mine, and eaten of the knowledge of good and evil, which was judgment and grievance.
In the second garden, the second Adam, Yeshua, had said, Not my will, but yours, and surrendered his life.
He had undone the choice of the first Adam. He was undoing the knowledge of good a
nd evil that I had found by eating the fruit! This was a great reversal!
All of this I thought in a single moment, and my heart leaped.
The voice spoke again, gently. “Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. Would you be forever alone, Daughter?”
The seed. The seed of the Father. Which is the Son.
“No,” I whispered, weeping again. “Have mercy on me, Father.”
Before I could say more, the serpent streaked toward the lamb, spread its jaws wide, and sank its long fangs deep into the lamb’s foot.
Immediately, the world filled with a scream and I clenched my eyes and screamed with it, terrified that the lamb would die as Yeshua had, leaving me without hope.
Wind whipped at my face, thunder crashed over my head. I was on Golgotha as the storm gathered to mock the fallen Son of God.
I threw my hands to my mouth and whimpered, eyes shut, afraid to see what I feared.
“Open your eyes, Daughter.”
When I did, I saw that the lamb was now Yeshua, in the flesh. He hung from a cross, bleeding. Nails like serpent’s fangs piercing his feet. And as I watched, heartbroken, the second Adam—Yeshua—gave up his spirit and died.
The world sputtered once, then winked out, leaving me in utter darkness once again.
Silence.
And then I saw that I too was dead. I knew that I was dead because I was beneath the earth, on my back, in a grave. I, the one who had united myself with the knowledge of good and evil and so became a god of my own making separate from my Creator, had died.
How could this be?
I lay perfectly still, horrified.
I cannot express the dread I felt in that moment. If Yeshua had failed to restore me to the Father’s realm, I had no hope. My whole body trembled.
There, above me at my feet, I could still see the serpent slowly writhing, staring at me with yellow, beady eyes, hissing. I could see nothing else, only the serpent, now becoming more frantic, searching the darkness for something.
Suddenly the ground began to tremble, then quake violently. I saw the serpent dart away, but a blazing white fire erupted from the ground where the lamb’s cross had been planted, shattering the stillness with a roar.
