Dressing Our Mess

“Every time we get dressed we tell the story of the Fall of humanity,” is a statement one of my professors made that has stuck with me (Dr. Glenn Kreider, DTS Fall semester 2011). Because in the Garden of Eden before the Fall, Adam and Eve were naked and without sin and shame. Everything God created as recorded in Genesis 1-2 He blessed and proclaimed that it was good. And then came the tragic Fall in Genesis 3 that set in motion our sinful patterns of hiding from God, covering our nakedness and shame and ultimately resulted in our death (“For the wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23).  Ever since the Fall, we’ve been dressing the mess of our sin and fallenness, from fig leaves to haute couture, we’re masters at the art of dressing.

I enjoy dressing, especially when I’m sporting a new look. It feels almost renewing to put on new clothes, as if somehow I’m changed, different, better because of the new apparel covering my body. There’s something about the art of dressing that beckons to our souls. After all, Paul exhorts us to “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24) and to “put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col 3:10). The countless ways we dress ourselves speaks to the longing within all of us to be who we are meant to be.

The story of Jesus anointed by a sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50 illustrates both the art and the implications of our dressings before God and before others. Luke tells the story of Jesus reclining at the home of Simon the Pharisee when a sinful woman from the town enters Simon’s home and anoints Jesus’ feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses His feet and anoints them with expensive perfume. Imagine the mess of that moment. She’s weeping so her eyes are puffy and red, any makeup she’s wearing is streaking down her face, her nose is running, her tears are mixing with Jesus’ dusty feet and creating a mud-like mixture of muck that she’s wiping up with her hair and kissing with her lips. What a spectacle. There was no denying the truth of who she was – she was a sinful mess and she had come to Jesus dressed the part.

Simon, on the other hand, was dressed in religious piety, self-righteousness and pride. He donned a garb of superiority, criticizing and condemning the woman as a “sinner”.

Simon was not less sinful, Simon was less aware of his sinfulness.

Like the woman, Simon too was a sinful mess, however, he came to Jesus blinded to the truth of who he was, dressed in the haute couture of religiosity.

So friend, how do you dress your mess? Genesis 3 guarantees that we are all a sinful mess. When you come to Jesus are you dressed like the sinful woman or like Simon the Pharisee? Because how we dress our mess makes all the difference.

Adam and Eve initially hid from God and attempted to dress their shame and nakedness with fig leaves, “making coverings for themselves” (Ge 3:7b). Likewise, Simon the Pharisee hid the truth of who he was from Jesus, dressing his shame and nakedness with self-made coverings of self-righteousness and pride.

“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).

In His great mercy and love, God clothed Adam and Eve. He covered their sin and shame. He dressed their sinful mess. Likewise, the sinful woman’s sin and shame was forgiven – covered, clothed by Jesus. She came to Him a sinful mess and He dressed her in robes of His righteousness.

The truth is that no matter how hard we try or how godly the garb we don, we cannot dress our sinful mess. So why do we so often clothe ourselves in self-righteousness and pride? And why do our churches look more like fig leaf production plants rather than sinful mess rehabilitation centers?

May we surrender our self-made coverings and come authentically before Jesus and others as the sinful messes that we truly are.

Every day.

And may the Only One who can truly dress us, both now and for all eternity, clothe His bride with “garments of salvation and array her in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels”

(Isaiah 61:10).

A crown of beauty instead of ashes, garments of salvation and praise, robes of righteousness from on high. Clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that’s a new look worth sporting.

That’s how you dress a mess.

Carole Chaput                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             http://carolechaput.com/                                                                                                                                                                                                                 https://twitter.com/#!/carolechaput                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Copyright 2012 Lighthouse Publications. Used by Permission.

Carole Chaput