Good morning. In the garden, they sinned. In the garden, they hid from God. In the garden, they tried to cover up their shame.
In the garden, God sought them. In the garden, God found them. In the garden, God told them that sin had a price, but He didn’t tell them how much it would cost Him.
God continues to seek, and God continues to find, for there is no hiding from God. Sin has always had its price, but the truth of that price has been revealed. Sin has cost the Father His Son. Those hours of separation caused by our sin and resulting in Him taking upon His shoulders our iniquities were painful in a way that we can not possibly understand. How can the God of creation lose, even for a time, a portion of Himself?
In the garden, the sinners found fig leaves and tried to cover up their sin. It seems like a silly idea, doesn’t it? But hey, they were new to this situation. They had never sinned before, so they had never felt the need to hide, or to cover, or to lie. People have been sinning now for a very long time and I suppose it seems reasonable that our efforts at running, hiding, covering, and lying will have improved. But no, our efforts are just as lame today as they were then. You can’t hide from God, and you can’t cover your shame.
Fortunately, we don’t have to. The overwhelming love of God has come to our rescue. We read in Isaiah 61:10
I delight greatly in the Lord;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Forget the fig leaf, you have His robe of righteousness. No need to hide, you enter into the presence of God in all of the best finery ever imagined.
Drop the leaf, claim the robe, and hold your head high. You are a child of the King, and you are, in Him, magnificent! Oh, the glory that is ours through the blood of the Lamb.
Vern