Rule Number 1
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 NASB
Naked – Job was right. We come into this world with nothing. We leave with nothing. What happens in between birth and death is the interaction of the divine and the human, and those of us on the human side often have very little to say about it. This famous phrase is followed by an incredibly important declaration: “Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.” That sets Job apart from almost all of us. Can you imagine the battering onslaught of messengers reporting their tales of woe one after another, completely unwinding all that Job has accomplished and all that he has lived for in a matter of minutes? Would we follow such news without sin or blame? In my experience and observation, Job’s response is stratospherically removed from our earthen cries for justice.
But just like Job, once it has happened, there is no going back. Life provides no “do-overs” for irrational evil. Miyoung Hammer offers a parallel to the lesser traumas we might experience.
“The understandable longing is for restored normalcy—a return to life before the illness or the diagnosis. But there is no going back. Once we are confronted with our mortality and the vulnerability of human life, we are forever changed. Even in the instances where disease is eradicated, the only ‘normal’ that can be attained is what is referred to as a ‘new normal’—a normal that accounts for the limitations wrought by illness or disability but is nevertheless full of new possibilities. And it is in the midst of this new normal that healing can begin. When we are no longer gripped by the desire to go back to who we once were, we are willing to explore who we are becoming and, perhaps, who we were intended to be in the first place.”[1]
Naked is the human condition at the edges. Obviously more than lack of covering, naked (ʿārôm) has been our condition of vulnerability since the serpent in the Garden. In reality, we are always naked for it takes but a moment to strip us of all the man-made protections and assumptions that make up clothed life. Is it any wonder that since the Genesis 3 account virtually all the uses of ʿārôm are negative? Is it any surprise that we hide our nakedness, our true unprotected selves? It’s not just shameful (why this is so is a good question), it’s frightening. To be seen without any shields, covers, safeguards—to be seen stripped of all our “fig leaves”—how paralyzing! How dissembling! Adam may have attempted to conceal his newly discovered vulnerability with pride (the real meaning of the so-called leaves), but we find his solution just as impotent. Returning to naked is life’s real target. There are no tailors in She’ol.
We are left with only this. What do we think about our in-between existence? How do we act when the edges blow over the horizon? What do we say when the wind whispers the truth? Does the Lord really give and take away? Is it possible to still bless when the mortal wound arrives? Can we continue when there is no way back?
Do we want to?
Topical Index: ʿārôm, naked, vulnerable, birth, death, Job 1:21
[1] Miyoung Yoon Hammer, Fuller Magazine, Issue #6, 2016, p. 33.
