Getting Close Without Getting Hurt Series

If I were to start this week’s teaching with a movie clip, as I have been known to do, it would actually be a collection of clips. All strung together in a row. Showing the same scenario being played out over and over again as shown to us in movies and TV shows.

The sad part is that it is a real life scenario that they have fictionalized. And I’m guessing it happens at least thousands of times every morning, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of times.

It starts something like this. They wake up in the morning. Get their bearings about them. Get their eyes open, and their mind working. Then they glance across the bed. See someone else in it with them, and the thought goes through their mind, “Oh my gosh! What have I done?”

If the previous night was filled with partying, drugs or alcohol, they may mean that question very literally. They may not have any idea what they have done. But those ingredients don’t even have to be in the mix. Their thinking could have been totally unhampered by any outside influences. And yet they found themselves sleeping with a stranger, a near stranger, or even just someone that they never would have logically proceeded to behave in such a manner with.

But that is not the scene that I would have shown you. The scene comes next. After asking themselves that question. After trying to piece together the puzzle that was the result of their longing for a moment of intimacy, this is what happens next. And if you stop and think about it, you will realize that you have seen it over and over again on TV and in the movies.

The person takes off. They may grab the very bedspread they were sleeping under, quickly rap it around their body, and lunge for the bathroom. Or they immediately sweep up their dress or pants and shirt, throw them on as quickly as they can, and head out of the room.

And if you think it is just handled that way because they have to get the characters from the bed to clothed without showing anything. We might need to have a chat re: your naivety to Hollywood’s motives.

But I do find it incredibly ironic. That even in the secular world. They will picture this real life scenario that takes place over and over again every morning across our country and around the world. And they will picture it just like it is. People that just moments ago were completely naked with each other. Were sexually engaged with each other. Are now rushing to cover themselves up. To hide themselves. To duck behind the shame that is now tarnishing their attempts at intimacy.

And it doesn’t just happen outside of marriage. There are married couples that find themselves only able to be physically intimate in the complete dark. Married couples that rush to cover themselves from the gaze of their very spouse. Married people that utilize words like “modesty” to shroud feelings of embarrassment or even shame at being exposed in such moments of intimacy.

Now, let me make a couple of things very clear. First, I know that intimacy is not just about physical interaction. It is not exclusively defined by sexual activity. But I also know that I am not willing to go so far as to say that intimacy is NOT about sex. Because if we completely remove intimacy from the sexual equation, we have completely bought into the world’s definitions. We have played into the thinking that intimacy and sex are mutually exclusive. Intimacy is about more than sex, but within God’s plan, the physical interaction of two married people is without a doubt an expression of incredible intimacy.

Unfortunately, of all the things that God has ever created, intimacy may be the one we messed up the fastest. We are only slowly managing to destroy the earth He gave us. It took us at least a little while to trade covenant relationship for legalism. In some corners, we still have managed to keep ritual from turning into routine. But intimacy? That probably holds the record of the thing most rapidly destroyed by mankind.

There are almost 1,200 chapters in the Bible. And we only have to read three of them to find the catastrophic collision of intimacy and shame. Turn with me to Genesis 2. Genesis 2:25 (read).

You see, if we try to separate physical exposure or nakedness from intimacy, we are attempting to do something even the Bible doesn’t attempt to do. In fact, the word of God does not say, “And they shared every thought they had with each other, and were not ashamed.” It doesn’t say, “And they compared skills, abilities, and talents, and were not ashamed.” It says, “They were both naked and were not ashamed.”