Christmas Clothes

“Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!’ Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’ And I said, ‘Let them put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments.” “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.” “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Zechariah 3:1-5; Isaiah 61:10; Matthew 1:21

Zechariah gives a vivid picture of one of God’s own and the daily battle of spiritual forces. Satan, named “the Accuser,” never relents from his modus operandi, yet our Savior rebukes him and wins. He is the glorious One Whose very “blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress.”*  Indeed, Jesus came to save, to bring salvation, to change our clothes from filthy garments to robes of righteousness, pure and clean. What a Savior!

This day, as I go into the world and face spiritual forces of evil that tempt, deceive and accuse from every angle, prodding me to discontent, irritation, comparisons, fears, insecurities, lust of flesh and eyes, selfish independence, I have the LORD Who wards off the enemy and reminds me He has clothed me anew. This Christmas, as I gather with loved ones who can tug at many heart strings, I am robed in my Redeemer. Jesus came that we might wear His clothes always, putting off the old patterns and default reactions and confidently, joyfully putting on, “as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:12-14)

“Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.” ~Charles Wesley (1739)  

Glorious Savior, adorn me in Your Christmas clothes– the humility of the manger, the holy light of the newborn King, the immeasurable love of my Savior Who came to lay down His life for sinners. Fit them perfectly to all of me, help me to wear them well so “‘midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head,”* and others be blessed.

*Nicolaus Ludwig, Graf von Zinzendorf (1739)