Naked In/Naked Out: Job, Jobs, Baptism, and Trailer Hitches on Hearses

NOTE:  This post originally was posted in a Facebook discussion on the Book of Job that I'm writing during Lent.  You can follow the discussion on Facebook using the hashtag ‪#‎JoelsJobJourney‬

I have always been drawn to Job's statement as he begins his mourning in 1:21: 

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”

I was listening to the radio Tuesday as I drove and the voice coming out of the speaker was remembering Steve Jobs the founder of electronics giant Apple. The rememberance was rather unremarkable, but the quote from Mr. Jobs was remarkable to me. 

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Jobs sounds exactly like Job and is offering the same perspective on life - Naked In / Naked Out. It is a way of looking at life that has the potential to free us from much of the anxiety, fear and striving that tends to consume our human existence.

While thinking about this Naked In / Naked Out philosophy I was reminded of a similar thing I learned a few years back from James Alison. Alison put it this way...the purpose of our Baptism is to set us free. He reasoned that in baptism we are put to death and brought back to life so in the end what can "they" do to you? What can "they" do to a dead man/woman? In essence the life in Christ we are resurrected to in baptism is one where we can live with nothing to gain, nothing to lose, and nothing to prove.

The final place where I have heard the echo of Job's Naked In / Naked out statement is in Kristian Bush's song "Trailer Hitch." 

"I don’t know why, know why
Everybody wanna die rich
Diamonds, Champagne,
Work your way down that list.
We try, everybody tries
Tries to fit into that ditch
You can’t take it with you when you go
Never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch
Never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch."

So in the end the echo of Job's words come to us from the oldest book in the Bible, to the founder of a computer company, a Catholic Theologian, and a country singer all saying Naked In / Naked Out. It's all a gift - may the name of the Lord be praised.

Joel K