Isaiah 61:10 (NIV84)
10 I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
What bride and groom would show up at their wedding wearing their dirtiest clothes? Just finished working on the car or in the yard and head straight for the wedding? Most people getting married treat their wedding like it’s the most special day of their lives. They show up wearing a beautiful wedding dress, a debonair tuxedo, something that everyone will notice. A sparkling gown, a colorful bow tie, and no one notices if the flowers aren’t exactly right on the tables or if the band doesn’t start playing at exactly the right time. Those minor failures all get fixed by the bride and groom, dressed in their best, getting married.
In life, it was your failures that were all noticeable to you. Every little one stood out because of how ugly it seemed. You may have tried to avoid making mistakes, failing to live up to God’s standards. But you made them anyway. That time going overboard drinking and making the fateful decision to get behind the wheel of the car. The actions taken in the darkness to try and hide the websites no one should see. Letting eyes wander in a crowd or taking advantage of a traveling spouse’s trust. Whatever they may be, whether big moral failings or a whole bunch of hopefully little failings, these sins all add up to burden our hearts and souls. It’s not a beautiful dress or handsome looking tuxedo you’re wearing. It’s the dirtiest clothes, caked in guilt, and covered in the filth of sin.
So how is it that your soul can rejoice? You can delight in the Lord because Jesus clothes you in garments of salvation and gives you a robe of righteousness. Clothes that weren’t yours naturally become yours as a gift from Christ. He has them to give because he wore them first. Jesus took your place with all your guilt and failures before the judgment of God. Jesus followed the plan of the Lord and won forgiveness for all your failings. He fixed them in his life and death. Wearing a perfect robe of righteousness he achieved by living perfectly and dying sacrificially, he has this robe to give. He gives it to his bride, the church. You. You adorn yourself with Christ’s righteousness. You dress up in the best Christ Jesus gives you to wear. The garments of salvation are yours. Delight in them.
What Jesus has done means you won’t have to show up to the wedding wearing dirty sinful clothes. You’ll be able to arrive at the gates of heaven, for the wedding feast of the Lamb, wearing the best. Dressed and adorned like a bride or groom on their wedding day. All your sinful failings will be fixed in Christ, and you’ll be dressed in the best: the garments of salvation won for you by Christ.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you once wore my failings as though they were your own. My sins and guilt are forgiven in your life and death. Now I wear your robe of righteousness as though it were mine because in your victory it is. Thank you for my new clothes, let me rejoice in them always. Amen.