“Where are you? Genesis 3:9“
By Fr. Adam Laski
Have you ever heard a kid say to you, “Stop looking at me?” When a little kid is crabby or upset or sick, the first thing they might say is, “Leave me alone….” Adam and Eve in the shame of the sin they committed in Genesis, run from God and hide from his loving presence.
Genesis is the compelling story of our pre-history. It is a theological – poetic smash-up of various types of literature. It isn’t a history text book – but this ancient work is theology, anthropology, mythology, history, and poetics. This isn’t to say Genesis doesn’t tell a story – it just tells a story of a more ancient genre. The story Genesis tells is one of very bad news and very good news, and the question “Where are you?” is right smack dab in the middle of it.
The fact that God has to ask Adam the question, “Where are you?” is because Adam & Eve listened to God’s commandment, but disobeyed it. They struggled to obey God’s voice and trust His command. So, they grasp at the fruit from the tree, they take it for themselves. And the effect is that they become like God, knowing good and evil, just as the serpent promised, but sin and shame enter in right alongside their knowledge. Adam and Eve eat the fruit and as they do they are aware of their nakedness, experience a shame they have never known up to now, and hide in fear. Their relationship with God, each other, and themselves had been broken, and they hide in their shame. God pursues them, even when they have hidden in their shame, and hide in the garden from his very presence.
God has a memory of Adam and Eve that predates the fall, that remembers when they were created in communion with him. God has a promise to share as soon as Adam and Eve fall, in a figurative way the first note of the song of salvation is heard in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve fall and right in the face of the fall God makes his first promise of the coming of Jesus.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.” Genesis 3:15