Advent 2024 : 7

 

In the first century eastern Mediterranean world, sheep and goats were hard to tell apart. Jesus drew on this to describe the judgement of the nations (not individuals) by the human appointed to this role by God. He divides them on the basis that, among other similar things, I was naked and you gave / did not give me clothes.

Way back not long after the Beginning, an enemy of God infiltrated Eden, and tricked the first humans into eating the fruit f the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Fruit the serpent correctly informed them would make them like God, in possessing such knowledge. The serpent tells them that God does not want them to be like him, and this is also correct, but, crucially, not the full picture. The fact that the cubs are not yet ready does not mean that the lioness has no intention of training them how to survive; sadly, while she is off hunting, a hostile creature attacks what she thought was a safe hiding place for her cubs.

They hide from God, who asks them why? I was naked, and afraid, and so I hid, the man responds. Who told you that you were naked, God asks? The question is not, who told you that you were naked – as if nakedness was problematic – but, who told you that you were naked? What was their motive? For what has happened is this: the eyes of the humans have been opened to their vulnerability in a world where some creatures act for good and some for evil, and they do not know whether God can be trusted. So, for the first time – like infants who have been surprised to discover that not every adult is reliably good – they now treat God as an unknown quantity they cannot be certain of.

God demonstrates his goodness by making clothes for them. (A sheep can clothe you by offering its wool; a goat can only clothe you by offering its hide and will not surrender its self-interest.)

God goes on to teach her cubs the survival skills they will need. They will learn how and when to fight: at the right time(s), Eve’s offspring will crush the head of the serpent’s offspring. They will learn how and when to flee: starting with their flight from Eden, no longer a safe place. They will learn how and when to freeze, and how and when to fawn.

They will learn from the fear of the Lord – from God’s own experience of fear and how to respond – which is the beginning of wisdom in this world.