"On the Third Day" with Sister Vassa

The Proto-proto-protoevangelium

Jul 08, 2025

Some more reflections post-Iona.

Sister Vassa

Sister Vassa Larin (“Coffee with Sister Vassa”) has been a dear friend for a while, but it was only last week that we were able to meet in the flesh. For those who don’t know her, she is an Orthodox nun and ‘force of nature’ who stands out in her advocacy for women and against the corruption of Christian nationalism. Her courage has, at times, been costly, but she balances her prophetic edge with a profound sense of dry (even dark) humour. Even so, I was not prepared for the levels of diaphragm-spraining laughter she would bring to our significant spiritual conversations.

Meanwhile, at the Iona retreat, Sister Vassa also offered beautiful teaching and choral singing to the many themes of ‘ninth-hour prayer,’ a reference to her daily practice of remembering Christ’s death on the Cross at the ninth hour (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, Luke 23:44) after three hours of darkness. She also brought brief homilies on the typology of the six days of creation. She is, after all, a leading scholar the spiritual meaning of the church calendar.

The Protoevangelium

Anyway, she inspired and directed me to think some new-to-me thoughts on the ‘protoevangelium,’ a Greek term meaning ‘first gospel.’ It refers to Genesis 3:15, which Christians see as the first announcement of the gospel. In it, God speaks to the serpent in Eden: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

The common Christian interpretation is that the Seed here refers to Jesus, and the serpent striking his heel refers to Satan’s failed effort to do away with Jesus in the crucifixion, and finally, that through the Cross, Christ would crush the head of Satan—that is, conquer death and the fear of death through which humanity has been held in slavery all our lives (Hebrews 2:14-15). It’s an excellent example of how the first Christians read the Hebrew Scriptures with an eye for prefigurement passages pointing to Jesus.

The Seed

This ‘Seed’ idea becomes central to God’s covenant with Abraham, that through his Seed, all the families in the earth would be blessed (see Genesis 17:7 and Genesis 22:18). In his letter to the Galatians, Paul explains, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to your seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.”

Christian doctrine asserts that the covenant promise of the Saving Seed, promised to Eve and then to Abraham, refers to Jesus, and is already embedded as the ‘Gospel according to Genesis’ very early on. As Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). He saw his death and resurrection as the fulfillment of the Genesis Seed covenants.

On the Third Day

But as I listened to Sister Vassa’s careful and creative engagement with Scripture, she opened me to an even earlier protoevangelium. She began by reminding us of the creedal phrase, “He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures”—lifted directly from Paul’s summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:4. She asked, “Where is this ‘third day’ promise ‘according to the Scriptures’?” I immediately thought of Jesus’ use of the ‘third day’ in Jonah 2 (in the belly of the sea monster for three days). And I thought of Hosea 6:2, where we read, “After two days he will revive us; on the third day, he will raise us up, that we may live in his presence.”

But Sister Vassa then led me back further, to Genesis 1 and the third day of creation. Might there be a glimpse of a protoevangelium there?

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the herb of the grass, bearing SEED according to its kind and likeness. Let the fruit tree bear fruit, whose SEED is in itself according to its kind on earth. It was so. Thus, the earth brought forth the herb of the grass, bearing SEED according to its kind and likeness. The fruit tree bore fruit, whose SEED is in itself according to its kind on earth. God saw that it was good. So evening and morning were the THIRD DAY (Genesis 1:11-12).

Now for my literalist friends, can you see how problematic it would be for God to plant vegetation on the third day while not even creating the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth? Strange. Unless the science of creation is not the point. If we’re ready for symbolic readings, we might also read Genesis 1 with gospel eyes. See how the word SEED is already named four times in conjunction with the ‘third day.’ That may seem a stretch to modern readers, but this is precisely the way ancient Bible expositors scanned the Scriptures for Emmaus Way readings. After all, even on the day of his resurrection, Jesus showed his disciples how ALL of the Law and Prophets anticipate the Son of Man’ passion and glory. The Seed that bears much fruit is proclaimed by the Holy Spirit on the third day of creation in Genesis.

Heaven and Earth

As if that weren’t early enough, theologians like Origen of Alexandria (circa 200 AD) look even earlier… to a proto-proto-protoevangelium in Genesis 1:1! In fact, John the Beloved himself will pick this up in John 1:1.

“In the beginning (Gk LXX: en archē), God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1)… Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (1:3).
“In the beginning (Gk: en archē) was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God” (John 1:1)… In him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” (1:4)

John is quite deliberately connecting the “Word who became flesh” to the very foundations of the creation account. And if we’re a little creative—as playful as Sister Vassa—we might see Christ as both Creator and created, divine and human, the heavens and the earth, both eternal Logos and cruciform—united in the one Person (hypostasis) of Jesus Christ. While Genesis regards the heavens and earth as created by God, John sees this same union as the Creator. It’s all very interesting if you’re playful and literary rather than rigid and literalistic. But all these readings signal the typology of the protoevangelium as early as Genesis 3:15, Genesis 1:11-12, and even Genesis 1:1.