Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 3 verses 21 through 24:
21And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— 23therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.
There are Adam and Eve, naked and ashamed and hiding pitifully behind fig leaves they’ve tied together with a vine from the Garden. Necessity is the mother of invention and so here is homo faber — humankind making tools, making use, making do. Here also is homo peccator — humanity disgraced amidst the consequence of its shameful sin.
But just as it is woefully homo faber, here also is Deo faber — God making something new, garments of skin to clothe the couple in.
The rabbis wondered from whence the skins came. One sly rabbi answered it must have been snake skin. Regardless, a life was given.
The hide must have been tough, tough enough not only to hide the shame on the inside but also to bear weather on the outside. For the sentence would soon be passed and the punishment would be exile. The couple would be cast out of Eden.
Yet even there in exile there is grace. Eden is lost forever. They cannot go back. But the LORD God has clothed them for the journey ahead. The LORD God has clothed their shame in sacrifice, the first of many.
A trespass is made. So too a sacrifice. One lays down his life for the sake of others. It is the end of the story hidden in the beginning.
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