Thursday, November 4, 2021
A New Day at 6:41
May Look Like All the Brokenness Left from All Our Yesterdays
Doch
God, Robes All the Saints,
In New and Righteous Garments,
So That We Rejoice in God’s Grace That We Get to Share
With Everyone
Isaiah 61:10
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Acts 8:39
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.
Words of Grace For Today
As she’d gotten older, year by year, month by month, even week by week, Jill had spent more and more time getting ready for the day. What started as a simple wash and run in her 20’s, by the time she was 50 was a thorough wash, application of 5 different ‘cleansing’ and ‘preserving’ soaps and lotions, followed by a ten minute exercise routine, then three different pills (a medication for GERDS, a vitamin for women 50+, and a glucosamine for arthritis), a breakfast with Omega3 and antioxidants, and a careful dressing for the day to ensure she did not leave something showing that should not be showing, and then when she was in her 60’s each year there was another thing added to the routine, and the medications at night were added and taken away, exercises, added or increased and removed, then added again, then replaced with others, and the arthritis demanded more and more medications (or additives to food, and the simple glucosamine was now a cocktail of additives that relieved the pain for a few hours, and dressing was always painful. Her wardrobe had to change depending on whether she could get her arms into a sweater, or she needed a button or zipper up front, or whether she could bend her legs and hips enough to get into something proper looking or she had to lay down to edge her way into something quite loose and comfortable, but a bit ghastly looking.
When she read the passage from Isaiah she thought about how her clothing had changed, and how getting dressed had become a major production in the last few months, worse than ever before. What a spectacular image: God has clothed me with the garments of salvation, God has covered me with the robe of righteousness.
Were getting dressed so easy and simple. Just let God do it. If that were her morning routine then she’d wear her ‘birthday suit’ everyday all day long, and that was not a pretty site anymore if it ever had been.
Still this assurance that God robed her in righteousness struck her to the core, and she involuntarily gave God thanks. Then noticing Isaiah’s words again, she realized that these ancient words from so many generations ago reported the same reaction in the writer. Because of the grace of God the writer greatly rejoiced in the Lord, my whole being exulted in my God.
Sometimes it was the simple ancient words that connect us to all the saints, those who have gone before us, those living now on earth, and all those yet to come in the generations of the future. What we experience, knowing we share so much with all the saints of all time, is what the eunuch experienced after Philip baptized him: as he joined the saints through baptism, and after Philip was there with him no more, he went on his way rejoicing.
So also this day, Jill thought, we saints, all of us, have so many reasons to rejoice, but none is more earth shaking and life altering than that God chooses us and clothes us in garments of salvation, in robes of righteousness.