Easter Clothes

Every winter, it seems, I end up gathering with friends over dinner and drinks at someone’s house
watching the Academy Awards. Each year I think I’ll enjoy watching actors and film creators and crews accepting the coveted Oscar award, but I really don’t. I guess I really want to watch the Oscars to see what movies got the top award for best picture and best screenplay, etcetera, so I know which movies to go see. But as far as the show itself, I’m really not all that into it; except for who might be hosting the program. This year it was Chris Rock – he was alright. If you remember years ago, Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars like a few years running. If you ask me, he was the best host yet.

Then there’s the Golden Globe awards. Now this awards show I have zero interest in except for one factor: Ricky Gervais. Yes, he’s raunchy and offensive. But he absolutely cracks me up. Much of his humor I cannot and will not repeat. But most of it skids around the acceptable. If it weren’t for his English accent – especially his dialect – he probably wouldn’t be near as funny. Nevertheless, when Ricky hosts the Globes, I set the DVR. But like the Oscars, I’m just not at all that interested in the show for the most part.

What I have determined over the years of watching these sorts of programs is that they are all about an incredibly wealthy and glitzy industry congratulating itself. For me, that’s not all that entertaining. The music awards perhaps, is probably the most entertaining since I really like music and watching bands perform, but it all comes down to the same thing really: an industry congratulating itself on it’s own accomplishments. We see wealthy movie and television stars as well as music icons virtually competing against each other for best dressed, best looking, and most beautiful date – male or female.

Perhaps it’s the follow-up entertainment news that makes me yawn the most. As much as celebrating ones accomplishments as an actor, or director, or writer, or musician, the entertainment news covers just as much about what the stars are wearing. Discussing to the last detail of someone’s tuxedo or evening gown; whether Will Smith wore a bow tie or neck tie or what color Leo was wearing, or who Cate Blanchett was wearing, seems as important as their talent. I think the only thing I’m less interested in is the Kardashians!

We have a fascination about wealth and fame in our culture. We are captivated by the news of what a celebrity – actor, singer, sports icon or billionaire turned wanna-be politician – owns, wears, lives in, or drives. It used to be that we wanted a successful life and own our piece of the so-called American dream, but these days it seems financial success and wealth are not enough; we desire fame as well, so we compare ourselves to others. We fill our living rooms with images of celebrity, fame, wealth, and power and we begin to think that there must be something missing in our lives. That maybe we aren’t good enough, so we start believing that we need something more. And we begin to think that it’s probably something someone else has, rather than what’s already present within us.

At the Great Vigil of Easter, which usually takes place the eve of Easter, we begin the order of worship with a series of Old Testament readings, reminding us of God’s saving deeds in history, of how God acted in the various circumstances of his people, and ultimately the work of redemption that God promises to all. The first of these readings is most appropriately the Genesis story of creation where God creates everything in the world and calls it good. Creation – everything that we see, hear, feel and touch, God made and claimed it as good. Even the final touch of creation, humanity itself, God calls good; made in the likeness of God. We are made in the likeness of God – but both Adam and Eve ultimately started believing that their existence needed more than Eden and even God, so they ate the fruit – the only thing in all of creation they were told to avoid, they ate. They started to believe that maybe they weren’t good enough, so they started believing that they needed something more. And they began to think that it must be something someone else has, rather than what’s already present within them. So they ate.

When they were called out on their errant ways, they discovered something about themselves that they never realized before: they were naked. In their now fallen state, they discover that they are naked and fashion loincloths with which to cover up their nakedness. According to Canon John Newton’s book “New Clothes”, we have been donning loincloths ever since. Trying to find who we are, we seek almost breathlessly the loincloths of our own identity. We are so attracted to the loincloths of the wealthy, the loincloths of the powerful, the loincloths of the famous. But God created us just as we are and called us good.

I hope this is making sense so far, because in the ancient world, clothing was very symbolic. Beginning with the loincloths of Adam and Eve in the garden, to wedding garments at the great heavenly banquet that Jesus speaks of, the image of what one wears is very meaningful. Not only in the Judeo/Christian tradition do we find clothing as symbolic, but also in the tradition of Islam; of which I am reminded after our Interfaith series during Lent. Barkley Thompson, Dean of our Cathedral recounts that,

“One of the Five Pillars of Islam is the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that every able-bodied Muslim is expected to take at least once during life. The pilgrim’s first stop upon reaching Mecca is the miqat, or changing room, in which he removes whatever clothes he has on, including jewelry, and dons a stark, plain, white garment known as the ihram.

Eventually, the pilgrim makes his way to the mosque housing the Kaaba stone, believed by Muslims to have been built by our shared father Abraham and symbolizing the faithfulness of God, where the pilgrim falls in with thousands upon thousands of identically-plainly dressed Muslims to ritually walk around the Kaaba seven times.

Before he arrived in Mecca, the pilgrim might have been a peasant or a king. But in Mecca he strips himself bare, ritually divesting himself of any and all indicators of his station. He removes his world, as does everyone around him, and he gives himself over to God.”

Clothing, then as now, is a powerful symbol of who we are, what we do, and how much we matter relative to others in the world. We find the images of clothing even in the account of Jesus’ trial, death, and resurrection.

Of course, it was a mockery to dress Jesus in a purple robe and a crown of thorns at his trial and crucifixion, but what would come next has powerful overtones. According to St. Paul’s theology, Jesus becomes the new Adam for us. As the prayer book recites, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (BCP 83). And just as Adam was clothed in his loincloth, so is Jesus; stripped bare, donning just a loincloth as he becomes at his most human and distant from God, for our sake.

After Jesus dies, Joseph of Arimathea, a leader in the Jewish council who did not agree with the decision to try Jesus, asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Accompanied by another Jewish leader, Nicodemus, he and Joseph would clothe Jesus in burial linens and lay him in a new tomb in a garden. Three days later Mary Magdalene, early in the morning before daybreak – when all is darkest just before the dawn – makes her way alone to the tomb. When Mary comes to the garden, summoning up the Garden of Eden in the creation story, she finds the tomb empty and runs to tell the other disciples. What always strikes me about the Easter story we hear from John, are the two disciples – Peter and the other disciple (that’s it, that’s all we are told, the other disciple) – who run to the tomb after Mary Magdalene runs to tell them the news. The running race between Peter and the other disciple may be a way to portray competition between two important figures in the community of John. But what I find most striking once again is what these two disciples find upon their entrance into the tomb: “the linen wrappings”. Gospel of John scholar Cynthia Kittredge observes that the “other disciple arrives first, looks in and sees the grave clothes”.

The tomb is empty because the life of God cannot be contained. The tomb is empty because a tomb is for the dead, not for the living. The tomb is empty because Jesus cannot be contained and as his "grave clothes" have been shed and left behind, he is now clothed in the splendor of the resurrection. So much so that Mary doesn’t even recognize her longtime friend and teacher. Even after she finds the tomb empty and even as she confesses her confusion to the angels, her grief blinds her. It is only when Jesus calls her by name that she understands that he’s done what he promised. Like the sheep who recognize the voice of their shepherd, Mary knows Jesus’ voice. She turns, with great excitement and says, Teacher! For a moment in time she believes everything is back to normal and life is good again. But Jesus tells her, ‘Do not hold on to me.’

It’s Easter; Jesus’ work on earth is accomplished.

And because it is accomplished, what to wear now? The freedom that Easter grants to us is that we are now redeemed and justified by this mighty act. We no longer need to fervently seek out an identity that makes us like someone by whom we were not created. The fame and celebrity that seems to surround us on all four corners need not be a distraction or even temptation for us. Because Jesus’ glorious resurrection garments are available to us. And the best part is that they don’t hide who we are; rather, they highlight who we are: beloved children of God, from whose love we can never be separated– not even by death or any other power that may be.

We no longer need to dress ourselves in loincloths of our own making, but rather grow into the splendid garment, the free garment of salvation, tailored for us at the resurrection. Then, we must search with each other for the post-resurrection Jesus, the living Christ, and listen for him to call our name and then we must run, run with excitement to tell others, proclaiming our Easter reality:

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!