02 1st Sunday of Christmas Col 3.12-17
My friends, I greet you this morning in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our lesson for today comes to us from the third chapter of Colossians beginning with the twelfth verse.
Have you heard the expression the clothes make the man? What do you think that means? What a person wears says a lot about them. Think about all the information that you can learn about someone based on their clothes. You can learn a person’s favorite sports team or tell which concerts they’ve been to. You can tell where a person does their shopping or in some cases, for people like me, what they had for breakfast. I think this is why ties were invented. And this is only the beginning.
If the person has on a uniform you can tell what their occupation is. This collar here is dead give away. And when you see a police officer in uniform, there is no doubt as to what that person does. You can tell a lot about a person by their clothes. Now I am not saying that we should make judgments about people based on the clothes that they wear, showing favoritism is never a good thing. I am simply saying that you can know some things about people by what they are wearing.
In our lesson for today Paul is also talking about clothing. However, the clothing he is talking about is not the kind that can be bought in the store. This clothing does not come in different colors or fashions. No amount of money can even buy this clothing. Yet it is given freely by God who is full of grace and love and truth.
“As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
This clothing is the clothing of our baptismal garments. This clothing is the robes that were placed on us as the water was poured out and the words spoken, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” These clothes are symbolized with the baptismal napkin, and also by the paul that is placed on a casket during a funeral service. The difference in these clothes from the ones that are on our backs, is that these clothes are not seen by our appearance, but by our actions, and in our words, and in the things that we do.
You see, in this section of Corinthians Paul is contrasting the life that is lived with our sinful nature in control, the old person as it is often referred to, with the new life that we live in Christ. Luther writes in the Small Catechism that “baptism signifies that the old creature in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
And so we find ourselves living in the middle of a struggle to live our lives the way we want to, and to take care of our selves, and to live our lives the way God wants us to and to take care of our neighbors. You see the problem with the old creature that we are to drown daily, is that this thing is a good swimmer. And so it is a challenge for us. Indeed if we were left to our own devices it would be impossible.
We have all done it. I’m sure that we could share stories. Though these are not usually the kinds of stories that we share. But how often have you had an opportunity to help someone out, or to give them a shoulder to cry on, or to simply spend some time with them. And yet chose not to do it. Given an opportunity to love and care for our neighbor and we chose to love and care for ourselves instead. For whatever reason, and deep down inside you feel kind of crummy about it. But there is some good news.
Our God, who loves us so very much, who is not satisfied to have us be separated from him by our sin and that old creature, our God, did not put on clothing, but he became a human being. The word for that is incarnation. Our God became a man, which is what we happen to be celebrating during this Christmas season. And through that man we are restored to our God. Our own selves which is stained and torn and tattered by sin, has been replaced with new pure, clothing.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. does a beautiful job of describing this concept in his story of the Ragman. Are you familiar with it? Allow me a moment to share it with you.
“Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking in the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, … voice: ‘Rags!’… ‘Rags! New Rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!’… I followed him. Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears…Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking. The Ragman stopped his cart. “Give me your rag,” he said so gently, “and I’ll give you another.” He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined… Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thin: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and the he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.”
As this story progresses, the Ragman meets a little girl with a bandaged head wound. He takes her bandage and gives her a new bonnet. He places her bandage on his head, and receives her injury. Then he meets a one armed man. The Ragman exchanges jackets with the man. And in the process, he loses one of his arms, and the one armed man is made whole. After this the Ragman meets a drunk. He takes the blanket of the drunk and wraps it around himself. And leaves new clothes.” The story goes on, “he came to a landfill … He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay own. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died. The narrator sobs himself to sleep. And he sleeps deeply. He sleeps through that Friday night, and right on into Sunday morning. Then he is awakened by light. He says, “I blinked and I looked, and I saw the last and the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.”
This is one of my all time favorite stories. For it so beautifully illustrates the work that Jesus does in our own lives. He takes are tired and dirty rags, and not only replaces them, but cleanses them through his death and resurrection. Through Christ we are changed and transformed. We are given new clothes to wear. So we now live with the confidence and hope that comes from having a relationship with God. And also with the garments of a new life lived in Jesus.
You are chosen and beloved by God. You have been clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. And above all love. These things are the result of the clothing that we have been clothed with in Christ. They are seen in the lives that we live, in the things that we teach and in the ministry that we do.
In a time of resolutions and looking to the future, 2007 promises to be a year full of ministry opportunities. It promises to be a year full of opportunities to show off the new clothes that we have been clothed with in Christ. And so we walk together, we work together we serve together, not to care for ourselves, but to care for the people that God has placed into our lives, so that through us, they may come to know the great love that our God has for them. That the ragman, the Christ has for them. May his peace rule in your hearts, now and always. Amen.