Naked

Over the past week I've had time to read more books than I usually do in a year - *2 whole books, and they weren't required for any of my classes.  The books were very different, but at one point they each brought up the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

After Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they realize they are naked, and they scramble to find leaves and whatever else is available to cover their bodies.  They experience a sense of shame.  Adam and eve were the first beings of their kind - they had nothing to compare their naked bodies to.  There were no other human beings walking around wearing clothes.  After they have eaten the fruit, God asks them, Who told you that you were naked? (Genesis 3:11).

Naked is not just the state of being without clothes.  Naked is just as you are.  Naked allows you to be seen wholly and truly - that is how God sees us, and loves us for it.  The world sees naked as shame and incompleteness.  In our society today, unless we live in a specific clothing-optional community, we have to wear clothes out in public.  But society pushes us to wear clothes of certain brands and styles, do our hair a certain way, drive a certain car, be seen with certain people at certain places.

When God asks Adam and Eve how they came to realize that they were naked, He does so with a heavy heart.  He knows.  They had partaken of the fruit from the tree that He had instructed them not to.  God gave Adam and Eve Eden, this place that was enough.  This place where they could just be in His presence.  A place where just being themselves, naked as they came, was enough.  Once they took the fruit, they felt unworthy.  They felt like they had to search for their worth in the world around them. 

Earlier this semester and friend and I were talking about Adam and Eve before one of our classes.  She pointed out an important detail in the story: God slaughters innocent animals to provide fur for Adam and Eve to cover their naked shame.  There is no coincidence that many years later God would send His son, innocent and blameless, to die on a cross in order to cover our shame.

God is enough for us.  We can stand before Him with a naked heart, and He loves us.  It is God's job to clothe us in His love and His righteousness.  He is enough for us.  He makes us worthy.   

~SP

*  If you are interested, two good books that I'd highly recommend are Sex God by Rob Bell and Stuff Christians Like by Jonathan Acuff.