Wardrobe Malfunctions

[A]nd to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness -- Ephesians 4:23-24

This has been a busy week, not a particularly bad one, but it seems as though it went by too fast.  I did not get everything done that I would like.  We have had non-stop rain here for the last six days.  Now we have the remnants of tropical storm (or depression or whatever) Bill pouring torrential amounts of water out of the sky.  Therefore my grass is going to be a foot high before I get a chance to cut it.  (Saturday is no good for other reasons.)  So I got some things done that are not part of my usual weekly routine.  For example, I got a haircut.  I guess it had been a while.  My wife got me started going to this shop at the mall, and this was probably my third haircut since February.  I went in and asked if they would have time to work me in that evening (Tuesday, I think).  The girl – not the usual 40ish woman – said to give her twenty minutes. 

While I was waiting -- it's the mall, right? -- I went looking for a summer sport coat to wear to church.  I found one in my size in a lightweight, kind of tan material that should work with brown, black, gray and probably navy pants.  I tried it on, paid for it, took it out and hung it up in my car, and came back in to finish waiting for my haircut.  I got my money’s worth on the haircut.  I said, “Just make it high and tight.”  She did.  There is nothing left to mat down under my helmet.  I’m probably good for the rest of the summer.  I gave her a generous gratuity despite the fact that she was talkative. 

Then tonight I took some stuff to Goodwill.  I’m going to take more -- none of Vickie’s stuff.  I can’t do that.  Her shoes are still where she left them on the steps up out of the garage.  Another pair of her shoes, her coat, and some other clothes are still in the laundry room.  I don’t know when I’ll even be able to move them back to her closet.  Anyway, I’m cleaning out some of my things that are just taking up space.  I’ll get rid of some old suits and other clothes that I don’t wear any more this fall probably.  I bought that new sport coat because the ones I’m going to take to Goodwill are out of style and have funky colors.  Some of them I think I got from Goodwill, and they were cheap but they never fit me well. 

I suppose I could take one of those old jackets to a tailor and have it let out in the chest and taken in the waist, have some of that padding pulled out of the shoulders, etc.  One time I was talking to a contractor about how he got started.  He said he learned a little about a lot of trades as a kid because his dad was always working on their old house.  He said it seemed like they were always adding and remodeling and refinishing one room or another.  He chuckled a little and asked, “You know what we had when we were done?”  I shook my head.  He said, “An old house.” 

Some of us try to fix up the old self.  We try to reform it and clean it up.  We work and work to make the old self more presentable and attractive and acceptable, to get it to conform to God’s law and His standards.  When we are done we have the old self.  The leopard has not changed his spots. 

God doesn’t call us to reform.  He has a better way.  He says all a person has to do is take the old self off and toss it, pitch it, throw it away.  We don’t need it.  He offers us this glorious new self that does not need reform.  It is already in the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness.  We don’t need to work and worry to get righteous because we have put on Christ, and we are clothed in His righteousness.   

It’s amazing.  Look at it again:  put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  That’s it.

I really wish I could be a good person.  I’d like to live in a way that’s pleasing to God.  I’m all messed, though.  I have all these stains, cigarette burns, and tears and holes in awkward places.  I can’t go before God like this.  But I can … put on the Lord Jesus Christ…  (Romans 13:14). 

We Have A Problem

So now, little children, remain in Him, so that when He appears we may have boldness and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. – 1 John 2:28

In one of Gagdad Bob’s posts last week he made the statement: The local ego is "exteriority" as such. When you think about it, it's the only thing that is "outside" the cosmos. It is merely a kind of Darwinian adaptation to external circumstances, and is therefore largely a mirror of the environment. It is more or less exiled from spirit, and in need of deliverance, or salvation.

Abiding in Christ or remaining in Him is the way of deliverance from this hellish isolation. Back in the ‘70’s sometime I read a book called Marooned about astronauts in an Apollo space capsule that lost power and became stranded in earth orbit. If I remember correctly, the book and a movie based on it preceded the Apollo 13 near-disaster. The difference was that the fictional astronauts lacked the backup systems of the lunar module that Apollo 13 was able to deploy. In the book the danger was that the astronauts would run out of oxygen before a rescue mission could be launched by NASA or the old USSR. If no action were taken to bring the men down, they would soon asphyxiate then continue to circle the planet in a slowly decaying obit until they eventually entered the atmosphere and burned.

It is a good spiritual allegory. We often think of ourselves as part of this group, that family, the masses of humanity, a citizen of this country or that state. The truth is, though, that all of those associations are sort of illusory, and they are certainly temporal. Apart from Christ, our permanent state is one of isolation. We might as well be stranded in a powerless spaceship. If we really consider where we are, we will realize that every breath draws us closer to our last breath. Our orbit is spiraling down to destruction. The end may be near or not but it is inevitable. But it need not be so. Jesus has provided a way of escape. He offers us a free ride home. We just have to enter His ship and remain with Him.

Another way to look at this Scripture is to consider the importance of the words “boldness” and “ashamed”. Remember that prior to the Fall, the man and the woman were naked but they were not ashamed before God. There was no ego, so there was no place to step outside and look back in. Adam was what he was and he thought nothing of it. We may talk more about this as we go along in First John.

We are moving toward that Christ-like state where we think nothing of self, where we are pure. Meanwhile, as long as we are in Christ, we are covered. To take away Adam’s shame, God killed an animal and clothed the man and woman with the skins. Our shame is removed when we put on Christ and are clothed with Him. The unredeemed ego remains naked and exposed. This is not obvious as long as it is cloaked in darkness – which explains why the saint is not all that welcome by everyone. But even if the outsiders can keep us at bay, some day Christ is going to appear to them. The light will come on, exposing them, and making them ashamed.

This shame is not the function of any particular sin or set of sins but of the very nature of self, of the self-consciousness that differentiates self from being, if you will. It seems to me sometimes that if I could stop thinking I could stop sinning, and I’m pretty sure that if I could stop self from stepping away and looking back, I could definitely be free of sin.

I can lose self and remain in Christ, or I can cling to self and remain marooned.