Naked and Unashamed

  It's the picture of innocence...of an intimacy so close to our Creator that Adam and Eve could literally enjoy an evening stroll beside God Himself...naked and unashamed. No imperfection to mar the picture, no sin to stain the image...no familiar brokenness to destroy the harmony of the Divine with the creation.
    Then a new image emerges...the expulsion from God's Garden...life falling into the chasm of death. Only a few pages later we see a man named Moses hiding in a rock in order to just catch a glimpse of God's back...knowing a face to face encounter would kill him. The intimate walk gone. Innocence traded for fig leaves. Clothed in shame.
    Not so long ago I stood before the Lord...covered in filthy rags. Pathetic. Repulsive. An ensemble of self-reliance, arrogance, and hope put in all the wrong places. Faith on a crumbling foundation of my own sufficient obedience. Security in being 'right'. He stripped me bare.
    I fell on my face before Him, empty hands raised above...in helpless shame and vulnerability. He rose from the throne of Heaven itself and reached down to raise me up. Enveloped by the King. Robed in His Righteousness alone. Intimacy restored. Death swallowed up by life.
   It is in the very imagery of baptism itself. Immersed in Christ Himself. Taking on his likeness, sharing in His Divine Nature...putting on the Royal Apparel of the King of Kings. He makes us His Bride, His cherished possession. We are his.
  For those of us who enjoy the blessing of a covenant marriage on this earth...do you remember when you first experienced intimacy w/your beloved? Naked and unashamed? The wonder of a closeness that in God's Design is meant to be shared with only 1 person for a lifetime? Remember that? It is the only relationship God compares to the intimacy He designs for his chosen ones, His elect, His Beloved. The wonder we feel in our earthly intimate relationship is the greatest joy we experience on earth, yet it sadly pales in the brilliancy of the intimacy we have offered to us in Christ.
  I bask in the wonder, the joy, the mystery...of being naked and unashamed.