Dressed Appropriately

We moved into the house we now live in on my birthday.
It was a hot July day with steady rain in the early morning hours.
By the grace of God, the rain stopped right before the movers came to load the truck.
The rain started again briefly and then lessened on the road to our new home.

The rain ended soon after the moving truck pulled into our new driveway.
We were home.
Our children were staying with good friends of ours from the night before.
Our new neighbor came over right away with a bouquet of flowers that had been delivered.

It was a birthday bouquet from my husband.
My first flowers at our new address.
A bouquet to let me know that even though it was moving day, it was also my birthday.
A bouquet sitting on the kitchen island reminded me that the day did not get lost in the move.

My husband and I are a good team.
He worked so hard to set up the beds in all of the bedrooms.
I worked very hard to unpack the kitchen so we could begin to feel at home.
By the next day, we had only dining room boxes to unpack and pictures to hang on the wall.

We worked at a frantic pace for a reason.
We were heading to the Olympics in Atlanta.
The games began on my birthday and continued until the beginning of August.
We were leaving to drive to Atlanta in a few days.

We left the unpacked boxes in the dining room and pictures resting against the wall.
We left the things in the basement that my husband wanted to set up in his workshop.
We left our new house and our new street to set out on an adventure.
The children were so excited; we had chosen various events we wanted to see.

Olympic Village was on Georgia Tech’s campus, which was my husband’s alma mater.
There were some privileges given to him as a Tech alum.
One that my children still talk about was getting to hold an exact replica of the Olympic torch.
Except for our youngest, who was only eight months old at the time, they all held it proudly.

We walked in Centennial Olympic Park, where our family has a brick placed in the pavement.
Our son found the location of that brick on a recent visit to Atlanta.
My husband walked everywhere with our eight-month-old daughter in a carrier on his back.
Crowds of people from various nations speaking different languages walked among us.

That was also the year of the terrorist bombing in Centennial Olympic Park.
The bomb blast killed one person and injured 111 others.
Another person died of a fatal heart attack while running to the scene.
Security that was tight before became even tighter after the bombing.

Being at the Olympics was a wonderful experience.
Returning to our home was something we all looked forward to.
The children wanted to play in our new neighborhood.
I wanted to begin to make the house feel like home.

The week after we returned, I set aside a day to wash windows.
I just wanted to really get them clean before blinds would be installed.
I remember wearing green shorts and a Flintstone t-shirt.
I remember that for a reason.

It wasn’t that I liked the cartoon as a child, though I watched it like most people my age.
It wasn’t that I liked wearing printed t-shirts because I rarely do.
It was just that my second daughter used to wear a twisty in her hair.
When her hair had the twisty in it, she looked like Pebbles Flintstone.

Someone said that once and I had to agree.
When I saw that t-shirt in a store, I had to get it since Pebbles was right in front.
That shirt and my green shorts became my cleaning outfit.
It was not something I wore out of the house.

As I was washing windows, the doorbell rang.
A group of neighborhood children were there asking to play with my children.
They wanted to know their ages.
They did the expected “Aaah” when I said our youngest was eight-months-old.

We are all outside playing and wanted to know if they wanted to play, too.
It was a lovely invitation right on the heels of coming home from the Olympics.
And our moms are there, too, if you want to come.
It was a right now kind of invitation; the windows could wait.

I put a touch of lipstick on, of course, and ran my fingers through my hair.
I walked down the street a bit, the children already playing as if they knew each other for years.
I expected, that since it was a hot August night, the moms would be in shorts as well.
Perhaps not in a Flintstone t-shirt, however.

When I got down the street to the appropriate house, no mothers were outside.
One of the children ran by and said, Oh, they’re in the back on the patio.
I walked down the driveway and into the back yard.
I was obviously not dressed appropriately.

Each of the women were in sundresses or cute shorts.
None of them had green shorts and a Flintstone t-shirt.
None of them looked as if they had been washing windows.
I was terribly under dressed, as if I didn’t get the memo.

They were very sweet.
I feebly explained my attire away, though not very successfully.
I just assumed it was a summer night, the children were playing and we would be casual.
I assumed wrong.

I have thought of that evening from time to time.
I don’t cringe as much as I did at first.
The green shorts and the Flintstone shirt are long gone.
The memory lingers with a smile and a chuckle.

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.” Then I said, “Put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the Lord stood by. (Zechariah 3:1-5)

We are not dressed properly to stand before God.
Our sin is a garment of filthy rags.
No matter how clean we think our clothes are, they are unacceptable to wear in God’s presence.
We need to be clothed in acceptable clothing.

However, nothing we can do on our own will make our filthy rags acceptable.
We have to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness so that we are acceptable to the Father.
We have to have our old garments of sin removed.
We have to have our new garments of His Righteousness placed upon us.

That is the Great Exchange.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Our clothes are unacceptable.
We need our old filthy rags of sin removed.
We need Jesus’ garments of righteousness.
Only then are we dressed appropriately to be in the presence of God.