Just after the tragic events of The Great and Terrible Exchange in Genesis chapter 3, God appears on the scene. And here are God's gentle and real and powerful words to the Man and the Woman who are hiding in the bushes because of their shame: "Where are you?"
It is the first question God asks in the Scriptures. It is the first question in the whole Bible. And I propose to you that it is the question that drives the Bible and all of history. This question echoes throughout all of history, chasing down God-fearers and God-haters from every tribe, nation and tongue.
"Where are you?" The question is often drowned out by what we call 'news.' Wars, corporate scandals, tragedies, natural disasters, sports scores. It is also drowned out by what we call 'our lives'--generally a cluttered collection of relationships, challenges (both real and imagined), to-do lists, routines, worries, a few fragmented hopes, and lots of complaining.
But this question and the pursuing God who voices it is the real story. Wars, scandals, tragedies, disasters and sports scores of today will all be supplanted by more of the same tomorrow. The stuff that makes up what we call 'our lives' passes even more readily. This question remains. This God remains. He is the God who comes to get us, and he is relentless.
This question and the gracious pursuit of the Lord God is most explicitly seen here in Genesis 3. It is embodied once again in the coming of the Christ. Immanuel, God with us. Jesus literally means "the Lord saves." It is God who comes to save us, God himself who comes to get us--he does not send someone else to do the dirty work for him.
God comes after his people, his creations, you and me, as we hide behind fears and intellect, behind computers and riches, as we hide behind our performances and our addictions, sometimes we even hide behind religious stuff. At some point in our lives we must come out. We must be found or we will go on being apart from him forever. And yet even after that initial finding, the process of being found happens daily, hourly. God speaks to me today, even as I write this, "Where are you?" Am I hiding behind the desires to impress or to be thought of as clever and insightful? Or am I allowing myself to be caught by God, caught up in his gracious and boundless and glorious pursuit of me and you?
Both the Christian and those who are not yet Christians must make decisions to allow God to find them. Our work in salvation and in working out this salvation is primarily a work to slow down long enough to allow God's gracious pursuit to catch us.
And so God again extends his loving, gracious invitation to you and me today, this hour, and it waits for us again in the next: "Where are you?"
3 comments:
Interesting tidbit since you mention God’s pursuit of us . . .
There’s so much meaning that can be pulled out of a text when we study the ancient languages. Psalm 23:6, says “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The interesting thing is that the word translated “follow” (radaph in Hebrew) is actually a weaker interpretation than the word represents elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. The word can also carry the meaning “to pursue, chase,” which when you substitute either of these words in the verse, lends a slight difference in meaning, but one that I believe illustrates exactly what you were talking about in your post, Alex. In some cases the word is used in terms of hostile pursuit. I can’t imagine any more aggressive pursuit of humankind on God’s part than his breaking into the world in Jesus!
Thanks for the post, Alex.
"Where are you?"
Nice insight, AK! We see here that God, after it's all broken, interacts with A&E relationally.
This isn't the mechanical Creator of the deists, who merely set up the rules, wound it all up, and walked away. In that universe, there would have been no "Where are you?" only consequences. Unlike, say, the Law of Gravity, which only knows if you jump off a cliff, you go down, God is asking questions of and pursuing the malefactors.
This also isn't the Judically Focused Creator who is merely concerned with Punishment & Repayment. God does not lead with "You wounded me!" or "You owe me a great debt!" or "This is how you will bring restitution for this wrong."
Rather, "Where are you?" indicates that this is a God whose first concern is to pursue A&E, than with his own glory/avenging his wrongs.
(And I use the word "indicates" advisedly. As Scripture unrolls, we learn more about this God and discover that, in fact, he is this kind of God. But I don't want to freight God's entire character on this one, though very important, question.)
(Also, it isn't that God is unconcerned with the sin here. Clearly there quickly follows the consequences for the sin. But the order is important: First God is concerned with the Who, than the What. Put another way, Grace precees the consequences of sin. And then the promise of victory follows that! So one might even say the movement is: Grace, Consequences for Sin, Grace. But now I'm rambling.)
This story (and all the much deeper ideas that can be drawn from it) has been the topic of an email-conversation between me and a UU friend of mine, James. He sees God creating the situation and knowing the outcome when he creates it and says that God "made" A&E sin and it's He who needs to be forgiven for making sin, not us. Don't worry Alex, I whole-heartedly disagree with him, I'm just not sure how to explain his false conclusions. (This guy's faith is in logic, essentially.)
God's pursuit immediatly following the fall is something that I've seen before, but not really thought about. I think it speaks volumes to the nature of God that my wonderfully stubborn friend James doesn't understand (and I pray he'll have a heart to hear it one day).
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