The Fallacy of a Covering

You gotta read this! This came in my inbox this morning as a question. But as you’ll see only a brief answer was needed. You can throw out all your books on ‘covering’ or the lack thereof. This young mom from Central California gets to the heart of it in one simple paragraph!

Do you think Adam and Eve’s need for physical covering is the same need the people of Israel experienced in their desire for Moses as mediator between them and God? The people of Israel, full of sin, thus shame, felt they needed something (or someone) between them and God. Is it this shame, which we religiously call a “covering” that keeps us from being in true relationship with a God we don’t yet understand? I had never considered that in Adam & Eve’s covering, they were inhibiting a transparent relationship with God and each other. In which case, is it possible that a jargon like, “you need to be under a spiritual covering” is nothing more than a manipulative statement meant to scare us into believing God is full of wrath and we are sinful, so stay covered! Is a “covering” not a place of safety after all, but a place of hiding and in reality- bondage? Does our current Christian culture’s concept of “covering” (nice alliteration, huh?), parallel Israel in their fear and shame? Could it be God desires for us to throw off our “covering” and begin real relationship?

All I have to add is, “YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! And YES! You’ve got it, Sis, on all counts!”

The cross was about God blowing up our need for a covering by resolving our shame in himself. If people really lived in that reality, they would find all this talk of a need for covering to be absolutely irrational. Covering from what? God? The one I want to know and the one who knows me at the core of my being.

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