Tuesday, Feb. 5

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Genesis 3:6-11  - When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.  Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”    

This is one of the saddest anticlimaxes of history: They eat, they expect marvelous results, they wait--and there grows on them the sense of shame.  Sin always leads to separation, and alienation, both between the sinner and God and between the sinner and his fellow human beings.  Suddenly they were self-conscious. 

Have you ever dreamed that you were in a public place and you weren’t properly clothed? It’s a relief to wake up and find out that you’re home in bed! Adam and Eve woke up and found out they weren’t dreaming. They were naked! For the first time, they had a sense that it wasn’t right. So they made an attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves.

When they sinned their conscience was activated. God’s questions zero in on this, “Where are you? Who told you that you were naked?”.  The fact that Adam now knew he was naked showed that he had a conscience, which he got from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Someone has defined the conscience as a faults alarm. It goes off to tell us our faults. Of course it’s possible, through repeated sin, to sear your conscience to the point where it no longer functions.  But this first couple’s conscience was operating just as God intended--it told them that they had sinned. When that alarm goes off, the fallen human tendency is to deal with it just as Adam and Eve did: Cover it up as quickly as possible. But that inner voice keeps nagging, “Guilty! Guilty!”

Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool (lit., “the wind”) of the day. It should have been a time of refreshment and delight, but it now was a time of fear. God’s presence was once a joy and a delight to them, but this time Adam and Eve didn’t want to see Him, so they hid among the trees.

The natural human response to guilt is to hide from the one in authority over you. I experience it with people who are running from the Lord. Guess who represents God in their life? The pastor!  If they happen to run into me in a store, they try to duck down one of the aisles before we make eye contact, it’s almost funny!

When the Lord finds Adam, Adam readily admits his fear.  But notice what he says, “I was afraid because I was naked.”  Not, “because I sinned,” but, “because I was naked.”  He had been naked every other time the Lord had walked with him in the garden. The problem wasn’t his nakedness, but his sin.  But the real problem was, and still is, it is a fearful thing to be exposed as a guilty sinner in the presence of God.  And so instead of coming to God, who can deal with our sin, we run, foolishly thinking that we can hide from His omnipresent gaze.  How ironic and how tragic that we run and hide from the only one who can forgive our sin, take away our guilt and heal our shame.  But, thankfully, God in His grace and mercy goes after us. He pursues us and calls us out of hiding!

Jeff Frazier