We cannot simply equate nudity with immodesty and lust. If we think “a lustful look” is the only way a person can look at the human body, then we subscribe to what John Paul II calls the “interpretation of suspicion”. Those who live a life of suspicion remain so imprisoned by their own lusts that they try to exert that same bondage on everyone else. They can’t think of the body and sex other than through the prism of lust. In doing so, they condemn themselves to a life much like that of the cynical cleric Savonarola who burned the great paintings of Florence, Italy in his “Bonfire of the Vanities”.
It is a life of control (following the rules) instead of a life of freedom (a change of heart) and eventually we grow cynical and self-serving. This kind of suspicion essentially cuts us off from the enjoyment of the wonder and beauty of God’s love and creation.
Do we choose to be controlled by lust or freed by Christ?
Many religious people say, “The naked body will always arouse lust in man”. For the person controlled by lust, that may be true. But that raises a huge question “Of which man are we speaking?” Of a man controlled by lust and devoid of beauty and wonder — or a man who has accepted a gift of freedom and redemption that has been both accomplished and applied?
The Hebrew Bible says optimistically that we have been set FREE from the control of sin, and that includes the sin of lust. We have been given the gift of love and purity. When we live out this life by daily accepting the gift of redemption, we are unconditionally set free from prudishness and suspicion and lust will not control our being.
We begin to see the human body as a symbol of God’s mystery. The human body itself becomes in some sense a sacrament, that is, a sign that makes visible the invisible mystery of God. And as singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn states emphatically, “Don’t tell me there is no mystery, it overflows my cup. This feast of beauty can intoxicate, just like the finest wine”.
Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE God. Purity of heart lets us look at the human body (ours and our neighbors) and SEE divine beauty–the invisible God made visible. We are miraculously able to SEE an UNSEEABLE God. God wants to reveal himself to us. He wants us to make his “feast of beauty” visible to us so that we can “see” him. And what better way than the ultimate creation? “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female. And God blessed them…and said that is was good”. (Genesis 1:27-28)