In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
When I was a boy, we didn’t have Google Maps to get us from point A to point B. When we were getting ready to travel during the summer, dad would go down to the Auto Club and get maps – actual paper maps – and then he’d sit down with a highlighter and highlight the route he wanted to take and the stops along the way so that we didn’t get lost or end up some place we’d rather not be. Of course, we now have technology that can do all that for us, but the point is that when you set off on a journey, you usually know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there so that you don’t get yourself into trouble.
On this First Sunday in Advent – the start of the Church Year – we begin our yearly journey with Christ. We know where we’re going, and we know how we’re going to get there. We’re traveling to Jerusalem, and we’re traveling there in Christ. We know this because we’ve been clothed with Christ. He’s gone before us on the journey to Jerusalem and He shows us the way. In our Baptism, we followed Him to His cross, rested with Him in the tomb and rose with Him to everlasting life as St. Paul said: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4) … a blessed event that many of you rightly bring to remembrance by touching the waters of the baptismal font and invoking the Holy Trinity in whose name you’re baptized.
As we now enter another year of God’s grace, we know that Bethlehem – the Christmas feast we so eagerly anticipate – is only one stop on our journey to Jerusalem … one stop on our way to a cross and an empty tomb. Every year, as we await our Lord’s Second Advent, we set off on that journey because we’re in Christ. And since today is the beginning of a new church year, that journey begins anew for us. We heard St. Paul tell us to: “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14). As we begin Advent and a new church year, it’s time for us to again clothe ourselves with Christ as we proclaim to the world that Jesus was born to die.
In Advent, we clothe ourselves with Christ because Advent tells us that Christ is near. Our Epistle puts it this way: “you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep” (Rom 13:11). Last Sunday, as we concluded our year in the historic one-year lectionary, the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins reminded us that Christ could come at any time. While we shouldn’t try to predict when that will be, we should always be prepared for it and regard it as being soon. Remember that it’s never further away from us than the time of our own death. So, we must always be ready for the Last Day when Christ will “come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead.”
We also clothe ourselves with Christ because “Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (Rom 13:11). This is the great comfort of Advent. Christ is not just near … He’s near to save us! He drew near to us in the humility of His Incarnation to accomplish our salvation and to prepare us for His second Advent when He will gather His faithful people into the eternal joy of His heaven. And that salvation is nearer for us every day.
The first Christians lived in eager anticipation of Christ’s return … so much so at times that St. Paul had to put them at ease and reassure them that all was well. For example, he was inspired to write these words to the Christians in Thessalonica: “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2 Thess 2:1-2). The Thessalonians were confused and afraid. They needed some correction and comfort, but no one could say that they weren’t eagerly anticipating Christ’s return!
We, on the other hand, are perhaps not eager enough. We’re more likely to live as if Christ were not coming back soon. We put off reconciling with those we’ve had fights and arguments with. We put off repenting and confessing those sins we have that are known only to us. We put off inviting others to church to hear the saving Gospel. We become careless in our Christian conduct: not guarding our thoughts, words, and deeds by the help of the Holy Spirit. We let our hearing of Christ’s life-giving Word and our receiving of Christ’s life-giving Sacraments become less of a priority and more and more infrequent … those very things that keep us attentive and prepared for Christ’s return … ready to enter into His eternal kingdom. It’s not that we should be frantic and fearful: trying to calculate the day and the hour and stressing out about it. But we should share the same eager anticipation of Christ’s return that the early Christians had and be prepared for it – clothed with Christ.
We should clothe ourselves with Christ because we’re preparing for an eternal feast … an eternal celebration. You wouldn’t wear ratty jeans and a stained t-shirt to a wedding reception. Likewise, it should be our earnest desire to celebrate Christ’s Second Advent wearing our best … clothed in Him who’s near to save us … clothed in Christ Himself.
Clothed with Christ, we’re able to look forward to His return as our eternal salvation rather than our eternal judgment. And being clothed with Christ is the only fitting attire for such a one-time celebration.
But what does it mean to be clothed with Christ? St. Paul explains this by reminding us of what we wouldn’t want Christ to see us wearing when He returns: “So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom 13:12-14). So, we’re reminded to clothe ourselves with Christ – this and every Advent – because Christ is truly near.
But Advent also reminds us that, even as we await His return, Christ is also here. He is God in the flesh who shares in all of the divine attributes … like omniscience and omnipresence. He see’s all that we do and knows all that we think. He knows what we’re wearing. So, in our Epistle, we’re given the urgent warning: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Rom 13:12). So much of who we are by nature is shrouded in darkness … things that we’d never want anyone to see … certainly not Christ. All those ways in which we make “provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Our coming Savior sees clearly all those things that we’ve clothed ourselves in … trying to hide them under cover of darkness. But we know the sin-stained garment that’s been our shame since our conception. The Christians in Thessalonica knew it as well. And St. Paul knew that they, like us, didn’t want God to see them that way.
We who’ve been called by the Gospel to a true and living faith want to clothe ourselves with Christ because we want Him to see us as He is, and not how we are by nature. We want to conduct ourselves decently as in the day … to honor Christ in thought, word and deed – drinking deeply of His Spirit from the Holy Scriptures and at His table. We want to honor Him with our bodies and walk in peace with all people – taking Him with us wherever we go to lead us into all righteousness.
Christ Himself is all of this for us. He is the Holy One of God … the name that is above every name … and the Word that is always merciful, loving, and saving. He is the Holy One who laid down His own life … shedding His blood for our eternal good and never for any selfish gain. He is the Prince of Peace who reconciled us to God and to each other by His atoning sacrifice on the cross. That is what it looks like to be clothed with Christ.
This and every Advent, we’re reminded that it’s time to clothe ourselves with Christ. But this exhortation from St. Paul isn’t just an imperative … nor is it just in the future. As St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27). As a baptized child of God, you “have put on Christ.” Everything that Christ accomplished by His First Advent – His perfect life … His sacrificial death … His glorious resurrection – has been given to you in your Baptism. Baptized into Christ, you are clothed with Christ’s righteousness. You are dressed in the most glorious of garments for the eternal feast. By your Baptism, Christ is both in you and is seen in you. So, St. Paul’s Advent admonition for us to wake up means simply that we’re to live as the people we are by Christ’s imputed righteousness … traveling the path we’ve been given to follow.
In Christ, we know where we’re going, and we know how we’re going to get there. Our yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem has begun and Jesus our Savior is here with us because we are clothed with Him and we feast at His table. “Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome,” so let us cast off the works of darkness as those who’ve been clothed with His saving light.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Pr. Jon Holst