My wife worked as a phlebotomist for a medical lab. Her job was to go to nursing homes and draw blood samples that doctors had ordered for their patients. She told me that she looked down a corridor one day while she was at one of these homes, and an elderly woman was walking towards her. The woman had on her blouse but had forgotten everything below her waist. Suddenly, my wife heard a nurse say, “Margaret, did you forget something!”
Unlike Margaret, Adam, after he sinned, knew he was naked. We learn this in Genesis 3:7, “Then the eyes of both [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”
Naked Before God
Adam and Eve tried to hide their sin, but they were found naked because they’d lost God’s holy covering. Moses, too, felt this pain, for the glory of God, which radiated from him after meeting with God, faded, leaving his face exposed to the people. We read:
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. – Exodus 34:29
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. – 2 Corinthians 3:12-13
Adam and all his descendants have battled their loss of God’s perfect covering. From simple necklaces to elaborate robes, humanity has tried to hide this forfeiture. Still, people try to hide their sins from God. Our nakedness should be a reminder that sin causes God’s divine covering to be lost, leaving us exposed to God and the world.
Let Us Run
During this time of tumult and trouble that is ripping apart families and friends, neighbors and nations, we need to stop pretending that we’re ok. That’s what Adam and Eve did when they dressed in fig leaves. They were not “ok,” and neither are we. The sins of our nation are our sins. These sins in each of us are exposed to God. We cannot hide them. So let us run to our Father, confess our sins, and repent of our sins that God might remove them and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Let us pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)”
I pray that none of us would be a “Margaret.”
Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay
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