Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear special ones.

Becki picked up little Nicholas at 6am. I was able to do a jog earlier. There’s still some snow on the sides of the roads, but I didn’t have to slog through any of it. Something caught my eye on that excursion that brought back some memories of marvel from my past mountain climbing experience, when I occasionally encountered some absolutely amazing formations of ice, snow, and rock—beholding areas where there were big snowballs sitting on top of little spindly snow pillars—like toad stools—sometimes finding even big boulders perched high above the snow on little ice shafts—or coming to a field of what looks like inverted icicles that point up rather than down. If it’s really cold, it’s a really bad place to fall or sit down. There were a few examples of that kind of thing along the side of the road. I guess this is more trivia.

On with the work—lots of work. Have a great day doing yours.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Clothing is unique to humans. At least I can’t think of any animal out there that is concerned with clothing for the sake of appearance—and is ashamed of being exposed to public view without it. They just let everything hang out in plain view with no embarrassment whatsoever. Even human cultures that we call primitive where partial nudity is the norm, typically will not lay absolutely everything bare. Discretion to cover the most private parts is still generally observed. That being the case, can you imagine a form of torture, shame, and humiliation that would be any more emotionally intense and dehumanizing than for you to be stripped down to absolutely nothing and put on public display? I’ve even had to engage in some psychological gymnastics of my own to submit to a physical examination by my doctor—who happens to be a woman. Appropriately stark naked in her presence still challenged everything my mother ever taught me!

Let’s use this line of reasoning to make a judgment call on the dumb idea of a nudist colony. There are those who choose to rebel against the code of clothing and argue that it is a very un-natural concept among all other living things—that it’s nothing more than a fabricated human imposition. Nonsense. Viewing all this through my Biblical lens forces me to view a nudist colony as an obviously defiant and rebellious argument and lifestyle against God and His design. And I’ll bet you will never find a vibrant Bible-believing church fellowship inside a nudist colony. Can you even imagine a pastor standing up there without a pulpit and—oh, phooey!—let’s not even go there.

The value I see in our little tangent here prompts us to give clearer view of human nudity (now there’s a peculiar paradox!) as it relates to the sufferings of Christ in achieving our salvation. Besides that, is it not just downright mind-boggling to consider Jesus in this scene, stripped of his clothing, mocked as an absurd impostor, tortured with physical abuse—yet, all the while, being the Maker and Owner of EVERYTHING?!?! This is not just a little case of amazing grace—it’s INFINITELY-BEYOND, OVER-THE-TOP, BIGGER-THAN-OUR-CAPACITY-TO-COMPREHEND CONDESCENSION AND GRACE! Please refuse to allow it to be anything less in your own view.