Naked and Unashamed

The ultimate conquest of human existence is to embody ourselves and feel whole or experience oneness. A person’s oneness has three components: Mind, body, and soul. God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are similarly three as one God. 

If we could see our creation in the beginning, it might go something like this. Christ molded Adam with his hands, and the Holy Spirit breathed life into our souls. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7. God, the father, guided and taught us obedience, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17. God gave us the three parts of Himself to create one being with body, soul, and mind. We have the gift within ourselves three parts of one God. We were naked and unashamed (Genesis 2:25)

The fall of man rejected that wisdom, ate the fruit out of disobedience, and feared that what God gave wasn’t enough. The three parts that made one being shattered and our connection to God along with it. We are no longer whole. We struggle with these pieces of ourselves not connecting due to the knowledge of our nakedness and fear. “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Genesis 3:10. We learned the destructive power of rejecting ourselves. When God created us, he accepted us as perfect, and we also received it until our disobedience caused our disconnect and suffering. We try different diets or go to the gym to work on our bodies. This rejection of the body perpetuates the disconnect of it to the mind and the spirit. The disease has spread to the other parts of the body, and we are no longer whole. 

We lost the closeness with God that gave us life. The comfort and love we could ever need or wanted disappearing for the time being. The Holy spirit cast us out of heaven and removed himself from us, severing the union we once had with him. Such shock on our system should have killed us. God doesn’t want us to die. If we did, it would mean that the creator didn’t want his creation. We rejected ourselves, but he didn’t abandon us. How many paintings did Monet burn? Probably none...For God to kill us, he would be killing a part of himself. Instead, he wants to redeem his masterpiece, rework it or take another creative direction.

Christ became man to save the flesh of his creation. Flesh for flesh. Only the ultimate sacrifice of the flesh can save the rest of the body. Christ manifested many miracles and healed with his hands. He ate with us, washed us, and healed us with his hands. He cherished our bodies and made us holy. The physical part of us, our bodies, are made perfect through Christ. Christ in the beginning and Christ as man is the same person! He did the same thing to heal the blind man to heal him from blindness as he did to create Adam. “When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.” John 9:6-7.

When Christ saves the body, the Spirit reconnects, and the mind restored, making us whole again.  Jesus picks up the pieces of us from the ashes of our shattered beings and rebuilds us. Only when we can offer up our whole beings as sacrifices to be burned to ashes can we be made whole again. Christ died to rebuild us. Christ didn’t die, so we don’t have to sacrifice. Christ talked about the complete sacrifice of ourselves on many occasions. In unconditional surrender, we gain ourselves back. Our mind and wisdom of discernment to God’s word, our flesh restored through Christ’s, and love breathed back into us through the Holy Spirit. God as Three made us whole in one body. This new body will be the same body that’s resurrected on the last day. Passion once again burns in us will make us eternal. 

The spiritual practice of prayers is a space in which we train ourselves to dwell within ourselves. We learn to experience the three parts of ourselves in mind, body, and soul. We are experiencing God as three parts in Him in our prayer. We then get an opportunity to dwell in Him as we dwell within ourselves. Jesus said, “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” John 14:17. We become one with Him, and He becomes one with us. The most magnificent fruit of the spiritual life is to love God in nakedness and be unashamed.

Image: Camille Pissarro, Bathing Women, 1896