They See What You Wear

based on Isaiah 61:10

by Pastor Richard Mau

2^nd Sunday after Christmas – January 5, 2003

Immanuel Lutheran – Des Plaines, IL

Today’s Scripture:

Psalm 147:12-20 Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3 Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 John 1:1-18

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen.

The text for today’s message is from the Old Testament reading, Isaiah 61:10

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Dear friends in Christ:

Isaiah refers to wonderful wedding clothes. The bridesmaids wear coordinating dresses. All of the men wear tuxedoes that present them trim and distinguished. The mothers wear special dresses for the occasion. The crowning moment is when the bride appears in her gown. All other events considered, how we dress for weddings is the most glorious. But look at everyone a week later in their normal clothes again.

How we dress makes a statement. Clothes reveal a person’s priorities. But how about clothes that are a gift, what someone else wants you to look like? I usually find myself looking far better in the clothes Rita chooses for me than the ones I picked out myself.

The Israelites in today’s text from Isaiah needed new clothes. Returning from exile they found themselves not welcomed by those who had remained in the homeland. The kingdom of God they expected to return to was not all peaches and cream. There was some pretty tough sledding ahead of them.

Today is the second Sunday after Christmas. The decorations are coming down. People have returned to work and students are returning to school. The joy and relaxed atmosphere of the festivities has dulled. You feel like you are back in old clothes again. In many ways like the Christmas and New Year’s activities had not happened. We’re back to that day-to-day tough sledding ahead of us.

Let’s go back to Christmas. Jesus came to earth in a simple way. His bed was a manger and his clothes simple cloths. Jesus came from all of his heavenly splendor and took on our clothes, our simplest and most humble of clothes. He not only put on our bodies and clothes, he also put on our sins. He did not sin himself. In that way he fulfilled God’s law that you and I cannot. But he wore our sins and wore them for us. In exchange for all of this, Jesus puts his righteousness on us. He put his righteousness on you. Instead of death for sin, he put salvation of forgiveness on you. He dressed you in clothes you could not put on yourself.

At the beginning of the service, we called on God in his mercy to forgive our sins by what we had thought, said and done. Each one here confessed his sinfulness in its ugliest state. Each one confessed that he cannot dress himself as God wants him dressed. God immediately responded by the announcement that all of those sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake in the name of the Triune God.

Each service at Immanuel then progresses as Jesus takes those sins on himself, he clothes you with his word. We remember our baptism in which all sins are washed away and Jesus clothes us in his righteousness before God at judgment. God continues to clothe you with himself in the readings, responses based on and incorporating his word, in hymns and prayers. The service peaks at that moment when Jesus presents himself to you individually and collectively in the bread and wine as we are joined with him and all saints of all times as his bride, the church. Imagine that, he adorns you with himself and presents you as glorious as the bride in a wedding!

Knowing how much God loves you and loving him in return, you exit this church building a different person. Sure, you slip and slide back into those old clothes, but return each Sunday to be refreshed in Christ’s glorious clothes again and again. Sometimes it is kicking and scratching as we do not like leaving some of those old clothes that become pretty comfortable. But, week in and week out, year in and year out, God continues to clothe you in his righteousness, building his love in you as you share that love with others.

God never said he was going to take away the struggles we have while in this world. Those struggles continue to prove that you and I are not in command and that we do need his creating, protecting, and redeeming love and power. Those struggles tell us that we need a Savior. Those struggles remind us that we are strangers in this world, awaiting that time when Christ will come to take us to our true home in heaven. Those struggles take us to a simple manger, a simple life, a simple but crude cross and a beautifully empty tomb to remind us that there is nothing God will not do for you. And aren’t you glad that Jesus will never take his clothes off of you, those of his righteousness and salvation to wear forever and ever. Amen.

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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