Adam & Eve . . . “then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.”
There is a big fig tree at the foot of the hill near our house here in Japan. Every time I drive by it I’m fascinated by its uniqueness.
First of all, did you know that fig trees do NOT have flowers that are pollinated by bees or wind to produce its fruit? Yes, that’s right. When you look at this picture of the big tree near our house you can see that the actual fig literally grows out of the branch!
Secondly, the leaves are huge, really thick-skinned and deep emerald green. The back of the fig leaf is filled with a system of veins that carry nutrients to the outer edges of the leaf, as well as make it very durable.
Looking at the structure of this leaf you can probably see how it made an excellent covering for Adam & Eve after they discovered they were naked! These leaves are so big that just one of them would have well covered their shame after they sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why we automatically think the forbidden fruit was an “apple,” I do not know, but I wonder, could it have been a fig?
Bigger than the Watergate Cover Up in the 1970’s was the cover up that is recorded in the history of Adam & Eve when they “knew to do right, but did it not.” Picture this:
Billy’s mother bakes a two-dozen batch of chocolate chip cookies. She takes them off the cookie sheet and puts them on a rack to cool. Billy is watching each cookie as it is being placed on the cooling rack.
“Now, Billy, don’t you dare touch any of these cookies! They are for company coming tonight,” his mother says.
With a disappointing look Billy replies, “Okay, Mom.”
She leaves the room to attend to other preparations. Billy looks at the cookies and thinks, “Man, there are so many cookies here I don’t think Mom will even notice if one is missing.”
Billy knows to do the right thing, but he doesn’t. He takes the biggest one and devours it. A half hour later Billy’s mom returns and counts the cookies. She confronts Billy, the only one she told to not touch the cookies. “Did you eat a cookie?”
With chocolate still smeared on his reddened face, he nervously says, “No, mom, I didn’t.”
Can you relate?
No matter what country or culture, the most common response of men, women and children around the world today to cover up the shame of getting caught is an outright lie or denial. It’s not only kids either, but presidents, politicians and maybe even pastors. Yikes! Basically, when confronted, the dead giveaway that something is being covered up is nervousness, repeated denial and lying.
God loves people who don’t cover up or try to hide their sin! If one prefers to keep their sin covered up, God’s going to find that person anyway, no matter where he or she may be hiding. When a person covers up his sin and gets caught, he repeats history.
Why not let’s get our hearts bare naked before God this weekend? You can be sure there will be no shame in it!