Naked and Unashamed
by Katie Harding on August 12, 2024
Have you ever wondered how Adam and Eve could have been around one another and not realized they were naked? When God created man and woman, it says they were naked and felt no shame. It wasn’t until they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that suddenly their eyes were opened, and they saw their nakedness. But why did they see it then and not before? Have you ever wondered? Viewing some old photos of my Christmas tree recently helped me more fully understand a possible answer to this question.
Every Christmas, after assembling our tree, we drape it with six to eight strands of light, not only white lights but multi-colored ones as well. By the time we finish, our tree is bathed in the brightest of light, and we can’t really see the tree anymore, just the tips of the branches. The light is so captivating that our eyes are drawn to it. In fact, it’s all we see until the lights go off. Then suddenly we see the tree in its entirety. We see the center pole and the different lengths and dimensions of each branch. We see the bends we’ve made to make them look more natural. With the lights off, we see the shapes and shadows of our tree in all its darkness.
When God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed life into him, God wasn’t breathing oxygen into his nostrils; He was breathing life into him — spiritual life. What we read as the breath of life and think the breath of oxygen, actually means the Spirit of Life, and the Spirit of Life is also the Spirit of Light. Adam and Eve were not only infused with life but light. They were so full of God’s light that I imagine, like our tree, they didn’t see the details of their bodies, just the outlines. Their eyes, like ours, were drawn to the light. But everything changed the day they ate the forbidden fruit. That’s the day the Light departed, and darkness was displayed. Without the Light radiating from within, they finally saw their nakedness.
Before their disobedience, Adam and Eve were unified by the Light of God and saw no shadows about them as there was no concept of evil. They experienced God’s fullness and were enlightened by the Spirit of God Himself. However, once they lost the Light, all they could see in the darkness was their sin. It was sin they were trying to cover up with fig leaves, not their nudity. Their shame didn’t originate with seeing their nakedness, but with seeing their sinfulness. With the fig leaves, they were hoping to reclaim their unity with one another by covering up their darkness. But no matter how hard they tried; man would no longer be unified by the light. No longer, that is, until Jesus.
Jesus came to undo what they had done. He came to restore the Light within and bring unity to God’s children once again. In our world today, we can be so divided by our differences that the desire to find unity in them can be consuming. Yet, no matter how hard we try, like Adam and Eve, we will never find unity by external practices, our fig leaves – the groups we belong to, the politics we follow, the neighborhoods we live in, or the clothes we wear. We can only be unified by the internal presence of Jesus Christ Himself – the Light we bear.
Let us stop focusing on our differences and seek unity only where true unity can be found. In Christ. May we learn to walk naked and unashamed once again before our God.