Searching for the Right Clothes to Wear Colossians 3:12-17
- American writer Lewis Grizzard, who was known for humorous commentary on southern culture, once said that where he was from, “There’s a big difference between the words, ‘naked’ and ‘nekkid.’ ‘Naked’ means you don’t have any clothes on. ‘Nekkid’ means you don’t have any clothes on – and you’re up to something.”
- Truth is, none of us is born completely naked. Maybe physically. But biologically and culturally we come draped in the clothes of our ancestors and their ways. You and I are an amalgamation of the blood and soil of the generations of ancestors and their way of life that went before you. The Old Norse called this one’s hamingya, that force that you bring with you into life from your parents, their parents, and their parents and on down the line, and the spirit of strength, honor and overcoming or lack thereof that they expressed and then passed on to you.
- When you get to a certain age you start to realize that you carry with you your family’s and your culture’s ways. I remember the first time that I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, my gosh you look like your mother. Then there was that time that a man approached me in town and said, “You’re a cop, right?” It wasn’t me, but my brother was a police officer.
- Most of us have a sense of pride in our family and our heritage. We have pictures on the wall of our ancestors and we love to hear and tell stories of how they overcame struggles and hardships, and also the funny stories that make us all human.
- Of course, there are the skeletons in the closest, too. Look around far and wide enough in your family tree and an occasional horse thief or such will appear. You’ll find something you’re not to pleased with.
- Once, my mom, my aunt and I were doing some genealogical work on my mother’s maternal roots in a local library and my dyed-in-the-wool Baptist mother discovered that it was her maternal forbearers who brought Catholicism to her home county. She was not too thrilled about that.
- On a more serious note, there are some family situations that people are not healthy or happy. They might be embarrassed by or angered by. Perhaps an alcoholic or abusive parent, a negligent parent, a wholly dysfunctional family. Furthermore, maybe you followed in the model what was given to you and you made bad choices that were injurious to yourself and to others, even ones that you love. Maybe you would just as well been born naked of your heritage than to be clothed in the family and culture that you inherited and began to practice in your own life.
- One of the great truths and powerful pieces of good news that come alive when you read the New Testament is that there is a place you can go to get a new pair of clothes, you can walk in with the damaged and soiled clothes of your life, shed them and walk out a new man or a new woman, clothed in the beautiful garb of Christ the King. And it is not just outerwear but a newness that transforms and reshapes the most inner and deepest part of you.
- When Lazarus rises from the grave, the first thing Jesus says is to remove his grave clothes. Why, because ole Lazarus was now a new man, healed of his past, ready for a powerful new future. His old grave clothes did not reflect the new, vital man he had become.
- Our passage in Colossians 3, picks up on this theme, when our writer begins by calling you ‘holy and beloved.” Whatever you were before Christ comes into your life, now you are nothing less than holy and dearly loved. Maybe you’ve never really heard that or felt that in your life. But, Christ begins his transformation of your life by declaring without equivocation, “You are worth it.”
- Now you have the power and freedom to clothe yourself with a new look that reflects a new heart. What is this new look? “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” This is your new look, born of a new heart. Maybe that is not the way of your recent ancestors, your present family, and the look of your present life, but, in Christ, you become a new person and now you walk with a compassionate heart, as a kind person, walking gently in the world, always patient in the face of adversity and confrontation.
- And there is one thread that ties all of these designs together on your new garb, and that is love. “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
- And how does this new look manifest itself in your life? First, it changes how you relate to others, your family, you friends, your coworkers, your parents, and so on. Forgiveness becomes a central part of how you relate to those close to you. Because, unfortunately, it is those closest to us who can hurt us the most, and we can choose bitterness and resentfulness, or we can find a way to accept their shortcomings, to understand the source of their weak hamingya and your own and simply forgive. Our writer says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” The Lord gave you a new set of clothes; give him space to do that for others.
- Your way, your look, held together by the strong, enduring thread of love will manifest itself most fully and powerfully as peace. Clothed in Christ, where you go, there will be peace. It is a peace given to you by Jesus Christ. In John 14, as Jesus is departing from his disciples he says, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:26-27).
- You will no longer live in fear and anxiety with these new clothes of Christ. Your clothes, though they are bound together by love and they manifest in peace, are clothes of power and might and victory. Paul says in Ephesians 6:11 says with full confidence, “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
- With these new clothes, because you are not afraid or anxious, but confident in the power of the Lord living in you, you will be able to face the world. You will pull up the blinds, shed your night clothes of fear and despair and put on your new clothes of power and overcoming. You can go into the world now and know that you have a new look. Whatever you did or said is in the past. Whatever your worldly inheritance, that no longer matters. You got a new pair of shoes, all the way up to a new hat, and it is the majestic and mighty garb of God living in and around you, and you will not be defeated. “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
- Finally, our writer says “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” You look good, girl. You look dapper, man. Because now you look like Jesus. Let that richly dwell in you, and walk down the street with a song in your heart, a psalm in your soul, a song from the Spirit singing to God with gratitude.
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