Ephesians 5:25b-27 - "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."
My son was shocked.
I ironed his church clothes early yesterday morning. And he said, "So Dad, when did this start?"
I laughed.
He looked great. Well, he always looks great. He just looked greater than usual. Everything looks better without wrinkles.
Well, maybe not everything. I think wrinkles communicate maturity and personality when those wrinkles are on the skin of faces and arms.
But wrinkles on clothes are another story. Wrinkles on clothes come when clothes are piled on each other, and they weigh on each other, and something's not done about it. That's what God is talking about in today's Bible verses. Jesus loves his bride, the Church. Jesus knows what is stealing from her beauty and radiance, and wrinkles in her clothing steal from her beauty and radiance.
The clothes of the Church are what God calls the garment or the cloak of righteousness. They're also called the wedding garment.
Can you imagine a bride showing up at a wedding in a wrinkled wedding dress?
Jesus can't either, especially not his bride. So he gets her clothes ready for her to put on, getting rid of every "stain or wrinkle or any other blemish," (Ephesians 5:27). And instead he makes sure she not only looks, but actually is, "holy and blameless" (Ephesians 5:27).
Jesus does this for us, who are the church, by remembering how special we are because God himself made us, by going to the cross for us where our wrinkled clothes caused by sin are emphatically pointed out, and by pouring out his blood that wipes away our sin which is the same as ironing out the wrinkles of our wedding garment.
I told my son how handsome he looked yesterday. Other people noticed and told me the same. No wrinkles in his clothes.
Jesus is telling you the same today, "You look Maaaaahvelous!"
Indeed we do! Because he made sure of it!
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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