For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ~Galatians 3.27
Prayer: Almighty God, who formed the earth out of water and through water by your word, who saved Noah and his family through water while destroying the wicked, who delivered your people Israel through the Sea while defeating Pharaoh and his armies, all of which are types of baptism into Christ Jesus, we pray that you will look mercifully upon Leah, saving her with your people while destroying sin and death. May she, throughout her life, relying upon the grace you give to her this day, continue to mortify sin so that at the last day she may participate in the resurrection of the just and reign with Christ Jesus eternally. Amen
Clothing is important in Scripture, not merely to cover our infantile nakedness but to glorify us. God never intended the man and woman to remain in their primal condition of nudity. He always intended to clothe them as they grew into the exalted royal rule God destined for them. We see this in the fact that Jesus, when seen after his ascension in Revelation, is clothed in garments of glory and beauty. He did not return to the original condition of nakedness–that occurred on the cross–but is crowned and clothed with glory to rule.
Clothes aren’t merely utilitarian. They are symbolic, carrying meaning in their fabric and design. Clothing speaks, telling the onlookers of your calling. People clothed as doctors, judges, police, or pastors are set apart for specific callings and are to uphold the dignity and responsibilities of those offices. Aaron’s high priest clothes in Exodus and Leviticus reveal this. He is clothed with garments of glory and beauty that reflect God’s own glory and beauty before his people. Aaron and his sons were to live up to the dignity of that office and carry out those responsibilities prescribed for that office. They and all the people around them were always reminded of that high priestly office when they saw those clothes.
Paul tells the Galatians that they have been clothed with Christ; they have “put on Christ” in baptism. Every baptized person is vested or clothed with a calling that determines their loyalties as well as giving them privileges and responsibilities. Our allegiance is to be to the Christ who clothes us in baptism, and those baptismal clothes call us to the same loyalty that Christ showed to us. We who were sinners and undeserving, we who were weak, helpless, and dead in our trespasses and sins, unable to help ourselves, are delivered by the one who clothed himself with our flesh to save us from the guilt and corruption of sin.
As many of us who have been baptized into Christ, we have been clothed with this Christ, the one who commits everything. Consequently, we are called to forsake all others and cling only to him; pledging our complete loyalty/allegiance to him.
Today Violet is being clothed with Christ Jesus just as the rest of us Christians have been clothed. The call upon her life is lifelong faith in Christ, complete, persevering loyalty to him. The clothes of her baptism place this demand upon her life. She is to love what Jesus loves and hate what Jesus hates. She is called to live according to the dignity, privileges, and responsibilities of the clothes she has been given.
She will have aid along the way for baptism into Christ, putting on Christ, means putting on his entire body, his family, the church. Through the family of Christ, she is instructed, encouraged, rebuked, and exhorted along the way. We live together, fight the same enemy together, laugh together, mourn together, and we inherit the promises together.
Church, Violet is being united to us, and we are to come alongside and help her grow in the faith through encouraging Sam and Elaine to stay faithful parents as well as giving Violet examples of the faith in word and deed. Let us all walk worthy of the calling of the clothes with which we have been clothed.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
