Christian Nakedness

November 17, 2017
☧ArchSheriff Ex 14:14 - Today at 2:20 AM
contemplating nakedness again and what it represents
how it's about the vulnerability of honesty; being clothed before someone is hiding yourself behind something that's not yourself but which you present yourself as
and there's a vulnerability and humility to nakedness because you can't change truth, you can't change who you truly are
but to lie by clothing yourself gives you control, because you can control what false identity you clothe yourself with
it's a very difficult virtue to strip yourself of all of the things you've chosen to clothe yourself with to cover up the insecurity of what your truer naked self looks like
and really at the end of the day, there isn't a very rational explanation for why we should be ashamed of our naked selves. It's no secret that we all have a naked self somewhere under all the things we clothe ourselves with, and we'd be better off if we were naked to each other and to ourselves, but instead we hold a deep shame and insecurity of our true selves (which is very immediately rooted in our brokenness from sin, which is why in Genesis 3 it's the most immediate consequence of the Fall chronologically) because we're afraid of not having control over ourselves. I think that the problem of the Fall is very deeply expressed by the serpent in Genesis 3:5, we go so far to be like God and to become gods to ourselves that we abandon God; with the rebellion against God's authority over us, we need to become gods to ourselves to restore security. So we recreate ourselves in our own image, which is the whole goal of clothing our nakedness. But rebellion from God is rebellion from truth, it's deluded and all our attempts at re-creation are deluded. It all just leads to more brokenness, and the only virtuous thing we can do is to actually be naked(edited)
BibleBotBOT - Today at 2:36 AM
Genesis 3:5 - Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

 <5> For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
☧ArchSheriff Ex 14:14 - Today at 2:38 AM
and I think that the dynamic of nakedness here is very much expressed in the literal nakedness in Genesis, in the Passion, and in the literal nakedness we experience, which I think is the natural law
there's really three categories of physical nakedness we're ever comfortable experiencing
the first is alone, if that. Often people aren't even comfortable enough with their own bodies to really be comfortable with nakedness at any time, but I think usually people are comfortable naked alone
we get really caught up in how we present ourselves outwardly and have our security deeply rooted in that, to the point of only being willing to be honest about our identities to ourselves, and still sometimes not even then, holding a deep discomfort and sometimes even hiding from ourselves, not wanting to admit who we are. I think this is expressed physically by our nakedness alone; in an analagous way, we're obviously never naked in public, but we are willing to be naked alone with ourselves unless we're deeply insecure about our bodies
the second way that we're willing to be naked is in romantic and sexual relationship
when we pursue relationship enough with another person and love that person deeply enough, we feel a deeper need to become totally open about who we are to that person. In romantic relationship, we want to give the whole of ourselves to someone else, and that needs to be predicated on being honest with them about who we are instead of trying to cover our identity up. In the same way as nakedness alone, this is a deeply personal/relational/emotional reality that's also expressed in the way we share our physical nakedness with people. That vulnerability of showing your whole identity to your spouse is correlated with the vulnerability of sharing your physical body
I think this gives a truer understanding of self-identity than the first way. Instead of being too afraid to share yourself with others and only willing to keep yourself to yourself, you're soberly deciding to forsake that control of being a god over yourself for the sake of love. Doing things for the sake of love is doing them for the sake of God; by clothing yourself you're forsaking God to become a god, but in this particular nakedness, you're giving up on the need to be a god so that God can rule over you again, through His presence in your mutual love for your spouse
☧ArchSheriff Ex 14:14 - Today at 3:03 AM
The third kind of nakedness is childlike nakedness. Children aren't naked for the sake of putting away their god complexes; they're naked for the sake of not having formed them. They're open and trusting of adults because it wouldn't occur to them yet for them to be any other way; they're openly physically naked for the same reason. They have their identities so rooted in love that the decision to be naked isn't at all the sober and deliberate act of forsaking their clothedness, but instead it's a completely flippant act. They so genuinely perceive their naked selves as their true selves that it would never occur to them not to present themselves as such except that it's imposed on them. There's no deliberation to their nakedness because there's no false identity they've formed to disrobe.
Now, I think these three nakednesses all converge
I think Christ's nakedness on the cross is all three of these
He's firstly naked in isolation ("My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?")
He expresses the paradox of this nakedness in being the God-forsaken God
It's a self-forsakedness
It's perhaps beyond articulation to express how God can be God-forsaken, the only thing that can do it justice is meditation on Christ's words, of the application of Psalm 22 so as to understand on an existential level that we can most deeply meet God in a state of God-forsakenness
And we can most deeply meet God and be naked before Him by crying out to Him about the loneliness of being clothed before others all the time, so that the suffering of self-disassociation brings us to a deeper sense of identity
He's also naked out of love for His spouse, the Church. On the cross Christ presents Himself as He most truly is to us, giving Himself wholly for us as a living sacrifice. He loves us that deeply and honestly that He is bare and true before us in hope that we will reciprocate that for the sake of our own salvation.
He's naked as a child to, as the Son before the Father. He's completely bare before the Father because as the perfect and unfallen man, He wouldn't have thought otherwise. Before the Father, He isn't naked so much with sobreity as He is with never having sinned. He has always been true to the Father, He has never clothed Himself in sin that He needs to disrobe Himself of.