Images of God: Born Naked

by Brad Malone

To the human being, from the times of Adam and Eve, there is one intimate thing about us, our naked self. After Eve took a chomp out of the apple and Adam pointed his guilted, accusing finger at Eve and God set guard over the beautiful garden, he took care to cloth the exiled duo to protect their naked selves. They originally hid from God because of their awful action and God was forced to show them how to cover. They were ashamed to be seen. They were ashamed to be seen physically. They were ashamed to be seen spiritually because of their guilt. It is here in the history of man that humans not only wanted to cover their physical bodies but also their emotional and spiritual selves.

The Fall of man is the point that we became ashamed and needy. We became ones who now possess the desire of private living. Holding physical privacies, emotional suppression so as to appear strong and withholding, and spiritual quietness so as to hide over the need for a good God. It becomes a denial of our condition and who we are. If we hide the reality from others then it does not need to be true. The fact of the matter is that we have been born into a world naked, with the spots of age already assigned and the marks of death in our flesh already visible. We are born crying out for need to be fed and nurtured. We are born spiritually naked, living away from a pursuing God. So this is who we are, people who have been born naked and needy.

Sergei Chepik created a series of images of Christ’s life, which hangs on the walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral. One image in the series of four is called The Holy Virgin (or Nativity) and portrays his vision of Christ’s incarnation to mankind. The color scheme has a dark and hazy look as if his arrival is in some partially destroyed cathedral after a devastating war or neglecting millennia. The bells of the tower have fallen after years of disrepair and give brief glimpses of what might have been their past and former selves. An angel stands to the left with his hands tangled in ropes leading to the cracked and fallen bells that are ringing with what must be an off-key tone but obviously the best they can muster. The focal point is the Christ. The child Jesus stands there naked forming the shape of the cross with His outstretched arms and legs-together stance. His palms are open and his legs straight. The look of the child is plain and simple and unashamed of the nakedness. His face has the look of knowing and accepting. But crouching behind Him is a hesitant and frightened mother. The same mother who a few years earlier had proclaimed before her cousin about her coming Child, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant!” She will be the only recorded person to witness both this moment of naked birth and His moment of naked death, covered only with a piece of cloth.

Chepik makes a profound statement by having Christ stand in the focal point of the composition stark naked before the world. The decision to have the child naked must be intentional because he intentionally made Jesus a child. Christ is presented as a young boy able to stand and hold a strong gaze and not as a young infant portraying a look of naivety and innocence. A simple meaning of having Christ without clothes is to show that our Savior too was of humble birth. He incarnated into the flesh and was in fact true man. As we approach Christmas this image plays true to the holiday’s theme. As the angel proclaimed to the world the day of incarnation, “For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

And so, there He, the child Jesus, stands before the world naked with His arms welcoming the reason for His birth. His arms open to present himself as a willing and unblemished sacrifice. The Child, born naked to the world stands without shame so that He can take our shame. The Child stands unhidden so we no longer have to hide. The Child stands upright in the face of persecution and death so we can stand before judgment. Surrounded by the fallen and the scared, He stands open and ready. As our Old Adam hides naked in the garden unable to be in front of God, the New Adam stands not hidden or ashamed but in righteousness and open for all to see.

This is not the normal twist to Advent. We do not normally equate our Savior’s arrival with Him standing naked with fallen cathedral bells ringing. Nor do we see it as a reflection of us standing before the world. But maybe it should be. After all it is in Christ’s first advent that causes us not to hide behind the bushes anymore. Rather His birth brings us to stand and be seen for what we are, fallen and naked but able to stand in Christ. As it is in Chepik’s painting, we remain standing like Christ, with open arms in the form of a cross before the world. St. Paul writes, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” We do not live as the Old Adam in the garden. Rather we live through the New Adam who angels sing of, Mary testifies to, and the Old Adam needs.