Lord of heaven and earth, of Eden and the new creation, where were you when man made sin? Your holy word speaks of you walking in the garden among the breeze and the trees. Walking–as if you had legs, as if one could locate you or as if, subject to time as we, one might see you change from one moment to another. You called out to Adam, “where are you?”1 Where indeed was Adam when he failed to keep his wife from Satan’s deception? Where indeed was his sanity, his obedience, his remembrances of your commands and promises? He stood by his wife’s side in geography only, not in love and faithfulness. He stood, a silent and guilty bystander. He was there, but not in earnest.
God, forbid that I should be found to place myself in judgment of the Almighty, but I wondered this morning where you were in that horrible, beautiful day that precipitated both the entrance of sin and the entrance of Christ into the world. As I read Genesis 3, I want to call out to you, “where are you?”1 You do not sleep as Elijah scornfully fancied the false “gods” do. Where were you when sin entered the world? Why did you not act sooner? Surely, I have blasphemed in even entertaining these thoughts, but please, my Holy Father, suffer the foolishness of your servant for another moment that your glory in correcting my error may be shown.
“Where shall I flee from your presence?” David pleaded with you rhetorically.2 Wasn’t it obvious?: there is nowhere to escape from the omnipresent Lord. Still, “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”3 Did the trees you made hide the creatures you made from their Creator’s sight? They hid, and you called “where are you?”1 Yet, you knew as surely as you asked. For every tongue answers to you, and their answers add nothing to your omniscience.
“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’”4 Despite Adam’s sin, guilt and foolishness, he had more sense than I to not subject his creator to the questions of the creature. Let your word be sufficient for me, master. For you have ordained and declared that “sin entered the world through one man”–Adam–and that “much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”5
I know where you were, Immanuel, when you set the fall of man aright, condemning sin and death forever and restoring the broken covenant between God and man. Nailed to the tree, you absorbed the death promised in that day and gave life eternal for all those whom you foreknew. And I know where you are, blessed Savior, at the Father’s right hand, interceding for us even now. And I know where you will be, conquering Christ, here again, reigning in justice, power and mercy. How extravagant is your grace, and how relentless is your judgment! Yet somehow you truly reveal to sinful man the indescribable nature of your being, the eternal mysteries of love himself. Bless you, great Father, for your eternal faithfulness, your limitless love, your word of truth. The task of understanding the contours of your perfect character would take an eternity, and that is exactly what you have provided your people.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”6 Amen.
1 Genesis 3:9.
2 Psalm 139:7-12.
3 Genesis 3:8.
4 Romans 9:20.
5 Romans 5:12-17.
6 Romans 11:33.
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