The Bible can be tricky. The thing about it is that there's almost always something more going on below the surface. Here's an example. In the book of Genesis (Hebrew meaning, "in the beginning") we read the story of our world's origins and the origins of the first cognizant humans. The text calls these people Adam (from the Hebrew "adama" meaning "earth" or "dirt") and Eve (which in Hebrew means, "living"). These two are born into a land of perfection, a land of sunshine and farts, as I'm fond of saying. God lays everything at their feet and says, "It's good, take it." The only prohibition he gives them is to refrain from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He kind of hints that if they eat from that tree, things will go downhill pretty quick. Of course they decide to eat it, because hey, don't we always like to do the one thing we aren't supposed to do?
Here's the thing I find fascinating. The text says that Adam and Eve are naked and they don't care. It literally says that they aren't ashamed. Think about that for a minute. Can you imagine what it would be like for everyone to be walking around naked. I don't even like being naked in front of a mirror, mainly because I'm afraid that the dashingly handsome man looking back at me might start hitting on me. This whole thing is why our first sexual encounters are so awkward, weird, and, to use a charming phrase, "clunky." We generally don't like to be naked in front of people.
The text then says that after they ate of this fruit, their eyes were opened and they immediately realized they were naked. We then read of the saddest words in the entire Bible; God asks them, "Where are you." Here's where if you study the Hebrew approach to Scripture (and not the Greek way like we approach it), you see that there's so much more going on here.
When you're naked, you're vulnerable. Everything is laid out there for everyone to see. Far from this text speaking of only a lack of clothes, it's deeper meaning is speaking of our desire (and now lack of desire) to be vulnerable and authentic. There's nothing to hide when you're naked, but we hide things all the time, and not just with our Fruit of the Looms and Abercrombie crap. We hide things all the time. We have secrets that we refuse to expose for fear that someone might see the real us. We all have a past, and very few people may know of it and how it continues to affect us.
The whole point of Christianity and all of this Kingdom of God stuff that Jesus spoke of, is to return the world to Eden before humans screwed it all up. We are living in a giant cycle, which you can see in the story of the Bible. The story begins in a garden, Jesus is mistaken for the gardener near his tomb, and at the end of Revelation, everything ends in a beautiful paradise where the world is put to rights. This is significant for this discussion because it tells us that we called back to nakedness. In the world as God desires, we are called to be naked before him and before one another. This means that secrets and blemishes are a thing of the past. The question, "Where are you?" is to be answered by each one of us with a resounding, "Here I am, warts and all. This is who I am, accept me for what I am."
Jesus calls his followers to be naked. Read the stories in the New Testament of the early Church. Talk about a group of people who were naked! They were constantly called upon to care for one another and be transparent with one another. The call remains today. So...who's tired of all this clothing?
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