Footsteps in the Garden: Guilt and Grace...Continued from page 1

When did this happen to you? When you told a lie and got caught? When you gossiped about a friend and hurt her? When you got drunk again after several promises to the one you love? When you were unfaithful to your spouse? When you betrayed a friend?

It happens when we have done something we know is against what we say we believe. It happens when we fail someone who has trusted us. Once it happens, we cower in the garden, fearful that the voice will be heard, "Where are you?" The voice may come through the voice of a parent , of a friend, one's child, one's spouse, or even one's community.

"You have been too quiet lately. Where are you?"

"Have you been avoiding me? Where have you been?"

"Why do you get angry so easily? Where are you?"

"I was naked and I hid myself."

"Who told you, you were naked?"

We stumble and stutter like our public figures, and all others caught doing what they know is not right, making excuses or lying about what they know to be true and what others know to be true.

So Adam having placed himself in this position stutters, " The woman You gave to me urged me and I ate." It's Adam's way of saying. "It's Your fault for giving me this creature called woman. Besides, I did not want to do it. I was pushed into it."

Does anyone ever say, "I did it because I wanted to. I chose to do it. I wish I had never been caught." Does anyone say, without being forced, "Now I see how I hurt others. I am ashamed." How refreshing this would sound.

There is something deeper here. Why the inability and unwillingness to confess and repent? When do we feel the guilt and shame most deeply? It's the moment we confront the person offended or when the person confronts us. Behind the initial guilt, is the shadow of someone we have betrayed. Sin is always a personal matter, even if the person betrayed, is ourselves. That's why people hide their faces from the TV cameras. They are hiding from the one betrayed, the face they do not want to see; a mother, a father, a friend, a teacher, a public, God.

It's the pain we want to run from. It is the judgment we feel we deserve but which we can not bear. So when the confrontation finally happens, the first response is denial.

"Did you eat of the fruit of the garden?"

"The woman you gave me urged me and I ate."

"The serpent beguiled me and I ate."

The people we have betrayed walk in the garden of our lives and their footsteps make us shudder, fearful they will ask the fateful words, " Have you eaten of the fruit of the garden?"

"Did you cheat on the exam?"

"Are you seeing another man?"

"Are you drinking again?"

"Did you tell the confidence I shared?"

The confrontation happens. The pain of the guilt and shame is too great to sustain and the fear of judgment is too great. The response is denial. Adam cannot face the judgment he has conferred upon himself. He expects to be killed on the spot. But his punishment is not death, but banishment. He and Eve are cast out of the garden, the place they had experienced the intimate presence of God.