"Clothe Yourselves"

 

Colossians 3:12-17     Luke 2:41-52

 

     Tomorrow we begin a new year, 2007.  Many people are making New Year's resolutions.  They are making decisions about what they want to do differently next year.  Some are positive, I am going to be friendlier next year, I am going to smile more, I am going to be more active in the life of the church, I am going to be a better parent, teacher, child.  Others are negatively positive, I am going to stop smoking, I will no longer drink and drive, I will no longer beat my husband at golf.  Most new years resolutions last about as long as it takes to make them. 

 

     Paul, in writing to the Colossians, has some suggestions for Christians as they begin the New Year.  Paul's advice is like most New Years resolutions, very easy to say, very difficult to carry out.  Put on Christ.  Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.  Be like Jesus.  Clothe yourselves with love.

 

     We might be thinking that is asking a lot.  We are going to have to make some changes in our lives if we are going to put on those kinds of traits.  It is going to take dedication, practice and discipline.

 

      Paul encouraged his readers to let the word of Christ dwell in them richly.  When we read the final verse of our Luke reading we are reminded that Jesus allowed the word of God to dwell in him.  As a young man he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people.  As Jesus grew physically he sought out mental and moral insight.  Being human he had the same limitations we do.  In the movie Big Tom Hanks played a child in an adult's body.  Some look upon Jesus as just the opposite,  an adult in the body of a child.   Jesus is not a God who looked like a child.  He was fully human.  He grew in wisdom and stature.

 

       Some scholars believe that is why Luke included this passage in his gospel.  There were tales going around about Jesus being a magician, performing wonderful feats like making clay birds live.  Luke was trying to silence the rumors and the outrageous stories.  He wanted his readers to understand that Jesus was human, but with one major difference from the rest of us, he did not sin. 

 

       Paul is reminding us that as we grow physically, as we grow older, we are called to put on Christ.  Now to put something on means that it is something we are lacking.  When we are getting dressed, if we have a shirt on, we don't put another shirt on.  By saying, "Clothe yourselves,"  Paul is telling the Colossians to add traits they don't already have.  Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and love are not a part of who they are, they are virtues they need to work at developing. 

 

      Here we are trying to be good citizens in the kingdom of God, but it is a kingdom that is far different than the one we are used to living in.  We are being called upon to develop traits that are not natural to us or the world we live in.  It takes commitment, dedication and practice. 

 

      Professor Henry Higgins in the play My Fair Lady transforms a cockney girl into a fine lady, and in the process was himself transformed by love.  He did not like being in love.  He thought it inconvenient, disruptive, unnatural until he was able to sing, "I've grown accustomed to your face.It's second nature to me now, like breathing out and breathing in."  At that point the unnatural becomes the natural.  Professor Henry Higgins had been transformed. 

 

      This is what Paul had in mind when he urged people to put on the virtues that are Christ like.  I have certain shoes that I feel comfortable wearing.  But it wasn't always that way.  When I get a new pair of shoes I usually prefer wearing the old, comfortable ones.  But when I wear the new ones enough and get used to them, they become my favorite shoes. 

 

     We may not be comfortable putting on Christ yet.  But if we practice the Christian  virtues, they will become second nature to us.  We may even find that we prefer the new us to the old us.  We may discover that the ways of the kingdom of God make life even better than it was before. 

 

     One of the things the passage in Luke does is move Jesus out of the cradle into the real world.  He moves from the safety of the cradle to a world filled with sin and death, suffering and great need.  I think that is a difficult transition for us.  It is difficult to make the transition from Christmas to the New Year.  With Jesus we have to leave the cradle and move back out into the real world.  It is possible that we have changed but the world has not, it is still full of sin and death, suffering and great need.  But the time comes to go back to work.

 

      Paul is suggesting as we go back to work that we wear a new outfit.  He challenges his readers to put on Christ.