"Where Are You?"

 

In today's first reading, Genesis 3: 9-24, we are given the dialogue that occurred between God and Adam following his disobedience to the Lord.  "'Where are you,'" God called out to Adam.  "'I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.' then [God] asked, 'Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!' the man replied, 'The woman whom you put here with me--she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.' The Lord God then asked the woman, 'Why did you do such a thing?' The woman answered, 'The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.'"

And the blame game goes on to this very day, as does the hiding when we do something wrong!  As with Adam, we feel "naked" when we go against our consciences, that is, when we follow our will and not God's!  And like both Adam and Eve, we find someone or something to blame for our wrongdoing! Also, true, is that God, to this very day, looks for us when we have gone astray. "Where are you?" God asks each one of us. We cannot hide from God! God knows that we are afraid, that we know that when we have done wrong, and He comes in search of us. Not to condemn us but to restore us, to heal us, to make us whole again and to protect us from Satan's trickery! God takes our side against Satan! God comes to help us every time and any time! 

Yes, there are consequences when we sin, as there were for Adam and Eve and for Satan who corralled them, so to speak!  Jesus assumed responsibility for our disobedience to God, offering His life and death to show us the way back to God and to assure us that sin and death do not have the last word! Resurrection does. We will rise from our sinful ways and return to what is right and just and the loving thing to do. God is there to strengthen us to leave sin behind and to follow Jesus, who is our Way, our Truth, and our Life back to God!