Naked.
In the Jainism religion, there is a branch called the Digamabaras. Digambaras hold the ideal of renouncing everything, clothes included. The monks, (it's a male-only sect), go around entirely naked, publicly proclaiming that not only have they renounced clothes and material things, but they've also renounced the shame of nakedness.
I don't necessarily agree with their belief in non-bathing, (it might kill organisms living in the water, something which goes again ahimsa, or non-violence/mindfulness), but I admire their cocky attempts at shamelessness. They've at least tried to embrace something which we as humans go great lengths to cover up: our fallen humanity.
No one that I know of has ever enjoyed being laid bare, stripped and exposed to the ridicule of mankind. To the all-seeing eyes of God. We'll do anything to keep the real us from seeping out into the open. We'll cover ourselves with any brand, attach ourselves to an identity of any sort that masks us and makes us look good.
But deep down inside we've got this primitive memory of an act involving fig leaves done long ago in a Garden. We remember the shame of that moment that we became aware of our nakedness and covered our sin with our own fabrication. We hoped that our attempt of clothed and self-imposed righteousness would hide the evidence. But covering the evidence became the incriminating evidence itself.
The truth is that we hate to face the real us that stares back in the car mirror, store windows, and pot-hole puddles when no one else is watching. The finger that we've been pointing at other people is really pointing at ourselves. Names no one else dare call us in this "let's-all-pretend-we're-okay" world are being scrawled upon the wall in searing permanent ink: Unworthy, Failure, Hopeless, Addict, Control-freak. It's like a tattoo gun shooting permanence into our skin forever: Wretched, Undeserving, Ungrateful, Impoverished, Shameful, Ugly. We have these names, these descriptions deservedly punctured into our skins, and we walk around taking great costs to cover up our true selves.
We, unlike the Digamabara monks, cringe at the thought of being naked.
Lest anyone think that the Digamabara monks have gotten it right though, take another look. In the attempt of being naked and without shame, they make a cover-up for themselves and an identity just as pitiful as clothing. They renounce Levi's and turbans and take on the clothes of self-sufficency, legalism, and self-righteousness. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Sounds hopeless.
But read on:
"...and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins." (Romans 3:23-25)
The hopelessness of our humanity turns into hope-fullness because of abundant grace supplied only through the redemption of Christ Jesus. Because of His divine forbearance with our sloppy mud-pie attempts at righteousness, because of His blood, because of His gift of grace, received by faith, we are made new and received as the perfection of His Son. Instead of fig-leaves, leggings, and tattoos, we're given the clothing of His righteousness, His beauty, and we are redeemed. Our skin is washed clean (and no organisms are killed in the act because He died once and for all), our names are erased and new names are given: Beloved, Child of God, Redeemed, Forgiven, Saved by Grace.
Over and over again, I put myself on trial, and over and over again I find myself condemned as guilty, failure, disappointment to my parents, probably even to the human race. Yes, I am a failure, but in Him I receive mercy. Yes, I am a disappointment, but because of Him I am a delight. Yes, I am a sinful, wretched creature whimpering in a puddle of my broken pride. But it stops at the Cross.
Because grace always halts, startles and shakes us.
It shocks us like the sight of a newly blossomed daffodil, spilling over yellow and beauty, when snowflakes piled up to my knees announce a cold and frozen world. It spins us around and 'round, till we realize that there's no way to add it up, no way to calculate it: the math falls short, the equation doesn't equate: grace is undeserved. All the numbers scream that we have a huge debt to pay, but the balance has been weighed and where grace is presiding, it's an overwhelming imbalance of Christ's sacrifice being greater than our sin.
Grace does more than halt our shame and guilt, it overcomes it, and we become more than conquerors. Total obliteration of our sin. It grips and gripes and some Mondays, Tuesdays, and some every-days we feel the wrenching of our old-self still clinging and accusing: you don't measure up, you failed.
But when you don't measure up, grace doesn't give up.
This world, our sin, and our fallen state of affairs will always be ever present to our eyes. We can't escape it, and God is not calling us to. He calls us into it, like plumbers called into the sewage mess, we are grace plumbers that know that the only way to be more than conquerors is to get into the grime and get into the grace.
Mess and failure is a breeding ground of grace to those with eyes and hearts transformed by the Spirit of Christ. Guess what? That's good news, because that means that our lives are breeding grounds for grace. Praise God.
Snow falls and the piles of snowflakes get bigger and bigger, covering the grey and mud of Winter. Grace accumulates like snow, our sins paid in full. Look to God, oh my soul, there is hope for the prostitute, the Diagamabara monk, the cashier, and even for you, oh dried up and weary heart.
I don't necessarily agree with their belief in non-bathing, (it might kill organisms living in the water, something which goes again ahimsa, or non-violence/mindfulness), but I admire their cocky attempts at shamelessness. They've at least tried to embrace something which we as humans go great lengths to cover up: our fallen humanity.
No one that I know of has ever enjoyed being laid bare, stripped and exposed to the ridicule of mankind. To the all-seeing eyes of God. We'll do anything to keep the real us from seeping out into the open. We'll cover ourselves with any brand, attach ourselves to an identity of any sort that masks us and makes us look good.
But deep down inside we've got this primitive memory of an act involving fig leaves done long ago in a Garden. We remember the shame of that moment that we became aware of our nakedness and covered our sin with our own fabrication. We hoped that our attempt of clothed and self-imposed righteousness would hide the evidence. But covering the evidence became the incriminating evidence itself.
The truth is that we hate to face the real us that stares back in the car mirror, store windows, and pot-hole puddles when no one else is watching. The finger that we've been pointing at other people is really pointing at ourselves. Names no one else dare call us in this "let's-all-pretend-we're-okay" world are being scrawled upon the wall in searing permanent ink: Unworthy, Failure, Hopeless, Addict, Control-freak. It's like a tattoo gun shooting permanence into our skin forever: Wretched, Undeserving, Ungrateful, Impoverished, Shameful, Ugly. We have these names, these descriptions deservedly punctured into our skins, and we walk around taking great costs to cover up our true selves.
We, unlike the Digamabara monks, cringe at the thought of being naked.
Lest anyone think that the Digamabara monks have gotten it right though, take another look. In the attempt of being naked and without shame, they make a cover-up for themselves and an identity just as pitiful as clothing. They renounce Levi's and turbans and take on the clothes of self-sufficency, legalism, and self-righteousness. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Sounds hopeless.
But read on:
"...and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins." (Romans 3:23-25)
The hopelessness of our humanity turns into hope-fullness because of abundant grace supplied only through the redemption of Christ Jesus. Because of His divine forbearance with our sloppy mud-pie attempts at righteousness, because of His blood, because of His gift of grace, received by faith, we are made new and received as the perfection of His Son. Instead of fig-leaves, leggings, and tattoos, we're given the clothing of His righteousness, His beauty, and we are redeemed. Our skin is washed clean (and no organisms are killed in the act because He died once and for all), our names are erased and new names are given: Beloved, Child of God, Redeemed, Forgiven, Saved by Grace.
Over and over again, I put myself on trial, and over and over again I find myself condemned as guilty, failure, disappointment to my parents, probably even to the human race. Yes, I am a failure, but in Him I receive mercy. Yes, I am a disappointment, but because of Him I am a delight. Yes, I am a sinful, wretched creature whimpering in a puddle of my broken pride. But it stops at the Cross.
Because grace always halts, startles and shakes us.
Grace does more than halt our shame and guilt, it overcomes it, and we become more than conquerors. Total obliteration of our sin. It grips and gripes and some Mondays, Tuesdays, and some every-days we feel the wrenching of our old-self still clinging and accusing: you don't measure up, you failed.
But when you don't measure up, grace doesn't give up.
This world, our sin, and our fallen state of affairs will always be ever present to our eyes. We can't escape it, and God is not calling us to. He calls us into it, like plumbers called into the sewage mess, we are grace plumbers that know that the only way to be more than conquerors is to get into the grime and get into the grace.
Mess and failure is a breeding ground of grace to those with eyes and hearts transformed by the Spirit of Christ. Guess what? That's good news, because that means that our lives are breeding grounds for grace. Praise God.
Snow falls and the piles of snowflakes get bigger and bigger, covering the grey and mud of Winter. Grace accumulates like snow, our sins paid in full. Look to God, oh my soul, there is hope for the prostitute, the Diagamabara monk, the cashier, and even for you, oh dried up and weary heart.
You have a gift, girl! Keep writing.
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