Where Are You? (Genesis 3:1-24)

By Tim Trainor

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021321.cfm
Genesis 3:9-24
Mark 8:1-10

My Reflection is based upon Genesis 3:1-24, in which you will see starkly contrasted to the fig leave type of solution to his guilt that Adam comes up with (and sometimes maybe even us) that did not suffice when he stood before the living God - versus - God's merciful and long term solution given to that first guilty, fig-leaf-clad, hiding couple He encountered in the Garden after their fall which will ultimately provide for their restoration.

Because we all sin, we all need to deal with the problem of guilt just like Adam and Eve are presented with in our reading this morning. It is not surprising that the enemy of our souls offers us many false solutions as we see here. So we must be careful and NOT use any of them to answer God's question to us of: “Where Are You?” - which is really:”Why are you hiding?”

Many Christians have wrong ideas about how God deals with sin and guilt. They think that God came looking for Adam and Eve in the garden, chewed them out, cursed everything in sight, kicked them out of the garden, and locked the door behind them. They view God as one who lowers the boom on guilty sinners and is then done with them.

How about you? Is that what you heard in this reading?

Let's take a 'closer' look at the content of this important scripture and see, truly, what the 'full story' is as Paul Harvey use to say.

The Hebrew understanding was that heaven was closed to all souls because of the sin of our first parents. Heaven would be opened only when the one perfect sacrifice was offered by the Messiah. In the meantime, the souls of the departed went to the abode of the dead (Hebrew: Sheol; Greek: Hades).

In this reflection we begin by looking at the events which caused this closure and their effects. Now to the details, beginning with: Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature and he said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?"Note that the serpent's question is a distortion of the divine command - it makes it sound like an unwarranted restriction that deserves a reply if conversation is to be maintained. So, the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

The woman corrects the serpent's distortion, but adds a distortion of her own. The command given the man by God was simply "not to eat of the tree" (Genesis 2:17). Hebrew legend has it that the man had forbidden the woman to touch the tree because of his zeal to guard her against any transgressing of the Divine command.

So, this original sin begins with some distortions of the truth on the part of both Satan and mankind.

Next, the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die”. Here Satan lies by refers to a physical death rather than the really potential spiritual one. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Remember, up until this encounter, only good has been experienced by both of them. Thus when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.

Note, Eve didn't have to hunt Adam down - he was right alongside her, but in silence. This is not good as Genesis 2:15 tells us that God commanded the man to "till and keep" the garden. The Hebrew word translated as "keep" can also be translated as "guard" (keep safe). If the man is to guard, there must be something to guard against. In my opinion, the man is standing alongside the woman but fails to keep her safe.

I think that perhaps it was not the woman who committed the first sin, but the man (Adam – her husband) who failed in his duty to guard her. So I read Romans 5:12 literary: "As sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, so death spread to all men [in general] because all men sinned."

What do I believe that Adam should have done you ask? He should have taken the serpent to task, done battle with it to defend his family; a battle which may well have cost the man his physical life. How do I know this? Because this is exactly what Jesus, the second Adam, did. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13).

Back to our story: Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.

Their nakedness becomes an occasion for shame; something which was impossible before the sin.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" Isn't God omnipotent – you say? Doesn't He know everything? Yes, of course He does - what He is really doing here is telling the man that He knows that something is wrong and He is inviting the man to tell Him about it. He is not asking for a physical location, he is asking the man "Where are you in your relationship with Me?"

He is inviting the man to take this opportunity to repent of his sin and obtain Divine forgiveness.

It is always God who issues the invitation to confess our sins with a little nudge of our consciences.

God knows all our sins as soon as we commit them but wants us to verbally confess them so that we are sure that we know what they are. We must name them and claim them.

“I was naked; and I hid myself." The man has realized that he is lacking something; and assumes that it is clothing. So they had sewed fig leaves together to solve that problem. But they miss the fact that God's grace was now missing!

God said, "Who told you that you were naked?” God is pointing out to Adam that this is the action of his own conscience which has pointed out the consequences of their sin. We know this because the Serpent certainly didn't tell! So how else did they come to this realization? So it appears, we learn, that when God, in His mercy, gave the man a free will, He also gave him a conscience. Thus the desire to do what is right was imprinted upon their souls.

“Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" God now points out what the result of sin was - he has eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and has the knowledge that he has done evil. He had thought that by eating of the tree he would be able to decide for himself what was good and what was evil, but sin is absolute - it is not relative to the situation and/or the participant. The man then said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."The man, instead of acknowledging his sinfulness, that he has disobeyed God, tries to shift the blame to the woman and in doing so blames God Himself: If God hadn't given him the woman, this never would have happened! Why are you approaching me first? Adam seems to be saying here. After all, the woman [that You gave to me] was the first to eat.

Remember, before God made the woman, He had put the man in the garden to till and guard it. He then commanded the man not to eat of the tree. To me - The man has failed in his duty to keep the serpent from influencing his wife and himself. They had only one commandment to obey: "Do not eat of the tree."

Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate." Yes - The man had instructed the woman, but she did not heed his direction and chose instead to listen to the serpent. She has chosen the serpent over her husband - a form of adultery. Remember that the Bible is all about covenant (family) relationships. For sure, both she and the man have rejected God as the Father of their family by disobeying His command and eating what was forbidden plus they did it in the presence of the serpent (a form of communion).

Notice that God does not question the serpent or give it an opportunity to offer a defense. Evil is rejected outright. "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all”.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed." Have all women, or men for that matter, had total separation/rejection between them and Satan? Obviously not, but remember that the woman was sinless up until this event.

Since then, there has been sparring between the devil and mankind. Total enmity would occur when another sinless woman came along; a mother whose own Son would refer to her as "woman" as a recognition of her sinless nature. “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." A reference to Christ, as He did emerge victorious in His battles with Satan and perhaps all the descendants of this first couple, all humanity (that's us who must ward off the temptations of Satan every day for the rest of our lives).

“And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.” Even though they have disobeyed and incurred the curses of the covenant they have with God. Note that God doesn't abandon them but instead provides for their basic necessities like the loving shepherding Father that He is.

Genesis 2:9 tells us that there were two trees in the center of the garden: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which they were forbidden to eat; and the Tree of Life. I believe that the Tree of Life was a forerunner of the sacraments and therefore God drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Like a sacrament, the Tree of Life was always effective and therefore Adam and Eve, who have not shown any contrition for their act of disobedience, are prevented from availing themselves of the graces available through it (they were, I believe, 'excommunicated' in modern day terms). Heaven was closed to mankind because of the rejection of our first parents and remained closed until the coming of the Messiah who offered for us the one perfect sacrifice.

The Tree of Life is not mentioned again in Holy Scripture until the book of Revelation where we find that those who are in heaven are allowed to eat from it (Revelation 22:14).

Finishing up on the Fall: As you can see, mankind bears the stain of original sin because our first parents, although given every opportunity to humble themselves and confess their sin, chose instead to be prideful and reject the grace which had been offered. Mankind's first opportunity to go to confession therefore fell short. God, in his questioning, has pointed out that we must be specific and name our sins, claim them as our own, and to look at the causes for them so that we can amend our ways and avoid these sins in the future.

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 and cast blame on someone else. But that inner voice keeps nagging, “Guilty! Guilty!”

Please note that a sinner’s guilt impacts our relationships with others. Immediately Adam and Eve lost the open relationship they had enjoyed with one another. “Naked and not ashamed” became naked and afraid). Their fig leaves now picture a barrier between them, which is seen even more when God confronts Adam and he blames Eve. Nice guy, huh? He’s trying to save his own skin, even if God zaps his wife off the face of the earth. At least Eve was nice enough to blame the serpent! But, believe me. Adam’s blaming Eve did not foster their relationship. I wonder if she ever 'reminded' him of this?

Now to the picture of God in Genesis 3 that is painted in the Catholic Catechism items 371-412&540. Here we find a teaching which describes God graciously seeking the guilty sinners and providing for their restoration. He promises them victory over the tempter. And even His expelling them from the garden is gracious, in that He protected them from living forever in their fallen condition. Words are there which gives us, as guilty sinners, great HOPE as we are NOT locked into the alienation and disordered relationships that sin always generates.

The Church teaches us that: God graciously seeks, confronts, and offers reconciliation to the guilty sinner.

We deal with our guilt, not by hiding it,but by coming to Him and acknowledging our sin. Jesus said, “The one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).

Now on to the musical analogy that Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to explain Genesis 3. He said the only way God can fix a discordant note is by using that note as the first one in a new follow on opus or song. This is exactly what God did. When man fell from grace, (a term used to describe mankind losing all the gifts God gave him as a result of choosing to separate themselves) he had no way of repairing the act he had committed. Man was given sanctifying grace – a gift that allowed him to share in God’s divinity. When he lost that, he no longer shared an infinite like nature of God; and because God is infinite, only an act by Him of infinite reparation was suitable. Without this shared divine nature, mankind could only make finite actions of reparation. But that isn’t enough. Mankind was therefore doomed.

God could have just reset the universe and started all over again. He could have just forgiven Adam and Eve and continued as normal. But, as the Archbishop explains, the discordant note of Adam and Eve's disobedience will go on forever unless it is fixed. And the way God chose to “fix” it was to create a detouring loop based on mirroring that sour note. So it does seem poetic that Mary, a virgin woman who listened to a good angel (Gabriel) and obeyed God is the musical counterpoint of Eve, a virgin who listened to a bad angel and disobeyed God. Likewise, it is poetic that Jesus conquered temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane and obeyed God to die on the wood of a cross, and receive everlasting life (resurrection) in a Garden. It is the counterpoint of Adam who ate from a tree made of wood, disobeyed God and lost everlasting life in a garden. Mary and Jesus are the promised mother and offspring that tramples on the head of the enemy. By doing this, they restore the original plan of God where man is united with God as he had been originally designed for.

We can, therefore, look at Genesis and Revelation as “bookends” of the Bible. In Genesis we see God walking with mankind in the Garden of Eden, and in the Book of Revelation we can read God as a bridegroom coming to walk with his bride – a new Jerusalem – a perfected city of man much like a “new Eden” with the Tree of Life at its center. (Revelation 22)

As we reflect on the different lessons above, whatever was the original design of God that was thwarted by man’s fall, we now see as restored!

It doesn’t seem to me that this just all happened by some weird coincidence, but by the Shepherding of some master planner of His wayward flock.

To that end, we find in early Church Paschal Vigil Mass (in Latin) these words: 'O happy fault, … which gained for us so great a Redeemer!' and Saint Ambrose speaking of the “Fortunate ruin of Adam in the Garden of Eden in that his sin brought more good to humanity than if he had stayed perfectly innocent.”

Let's end and begin to move into Lent by directing God’s first question to each of us: “Where are you?

Are we hiding, naked and afraid of God, because of something? This Lent, He is graciously calling to each of us, “Where are you?” Because, I believe, he wanted to express this grief. “I miss our walks and time spent together!”

And now, as Paul Harvey use to say, you know the 'rest of the story.'

So - What do you think of all this – Especially with Ash Wednesday fast approaching us?