Naked



                This morning the sermon text spoke of the glory of God and how unimaginable it must be.  The verse that truly struck me was Isaiah 6:5, Isaiah is exposed to God’s glory and his words and actions display such humility and reverence; “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  In today’s world of selfies and doing what we can to get noticed, it is so hard to fathom that when we see someone of notoriety we might shrink into a corner humbly.
                Then we must consider the humility of Christ, to leave such glory and become a man was already humiliation but to follow that up with a common lifestyle and a ministry and death fraught with humiliation! So, I began to form a word picture that we might relate to (Don always loved word pictures).
                Imagine you are invited to a very fancy, formal soiree. You have found the absolute best outfit and you are sure to be the finest dressed person there.  You enter the door to a large, well lit room with white marble floors and an equally white marble stage upon which is Jesus. All the people in the room and Jesus are fabulously dressed and adorned, so much so, you look down at your own outfit and realize how mistaken you were about your outfit.  Isaiah 64:6 comes to mind; “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”  Your outfit falls from your body like tattered rags and lies on the floor; you stand there naked, while everyone stares. Talk about humiliation! You suddenly look to the stage, you want to hide; no, Jesus can’t see you in this condition. But he already has.
                Then, Jesus does the unimaginable. Looking straight at you he walks toward you, letting his garments fall to the floor as he walks. By the time he reaches you he too is naked, he shields you from the glares and taunts of others, he meets you where you are and loves you for who you are. Christ has already done that for you! You most certainly stand out in the crowd however it is in an embarrassing way. Yet, when we are stripped bare is when we need our Savior the most.
                Hand in hand with humility is reverence, it is an exceptionally deep respect for another, and it is how we should approach the throne of grace. The world would have us pull the spotlight and say, “look at me, look at me!” Christ will say, come with me into my glory, you’ve never seen anything like this before.  Remember, what you do to others you do also unto Christ, be humble and he will lift you up.
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