In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, beloved in the Lord, we have been seasonally reading, listening to, the Gospel according to Luke, which will continue pretty much till Christmas. So Sunday by Sunday, and even during the week if you’re reading the lectionary at home, which I hope everybody is, we’re reading the Gospel according to Luke. Now this is a very subtle question I put to you. I should probably offer a large reward for anybody who can answer the question. What image appeared in last Sunday’s gospel that also appears today? See, I really didn’t expect any show of hands on that. Very subtle, I said.

Last Sunday, the gospel ended at Gadara, right? With the fellow who had been a demoniac. He is portrayed as seated, clothed, and in his right mind. The “clothed” is what I’m getting at. The clothing appears in this morning’s gospel, doesn’t it? Now, I’m looking out at everybody today. Everybody is seated, clothed… [Laughter] and in their right minds. The best evidence that you are in your right minds is that you are clothed.

Now we are reading the Gospel of Luke this season. Luke begins the image of the clothing almost from the front of his gospel, very much from the front of his gospel. Not very far into it at all, Luke brings in the image of the clothing, and it’s Jesus’ clothing. We will be reading this text a couple of months from now anyway. Listen closely.

And she brought forth her first-born Son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.

Did you ever think how strange that is that he would say that; that Luke would write that? For example, if I were describing the birth of my youngest grandson, I would say, “She brought him forth and put a diaper on him.” Why would you add that? Why would you add that? The fact that Luke does add that, though, that he puts that in… Never presume that anything in the Scriptures is without meaning; never make that presumption. God does not give us idle talk; he’s not into small talk. If God says it in there, he wants us to think about it. And in this particular case, Luke goes out of his way to say it twice! “She brought forth her first-born Son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” And then the angels say to the shepherds, “And this will be a sign to you, a simeon, a sign to you: You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” It says it twice! Makes sure we don’t miss it.

Why in the world does Luke mention that the baby Jesus was clothed? It’s a rather strange thing to mention, but then the angel declares it’s a sign. What sort of sign? What does it signify? Now, that’s the beginning of Luke’s gospel. He draws specific attention to the clothing of Jesus. Go toward the end of Luke’s gospel. It’s juxtaposed with another detail: “And they divided his garments and cast lots”—it means rolled dice or something like that.

So you’ve got the clothing of Jesus at his birth and the dis-clothing of Jesus at his death. Anyone going to tell me that’s coincidental? These two verses, one at the beginning and the other at the end of Luke’s gospel form what in literature is called an inclusio, a literary inclusion, bookends, as it were, twin pillars on either side of the gate. But what is Luke trying to get at? Because he says it’s a sign.

Point one. Luke presumes his readers are already familiar with the significance of clothing in the Bible. Luke is doing what he describes Jesus as doing near the end of the gospel, namely, he is opening our minds to understand the Hebrew Scriptures. What Luke is doing here is what Jesus does in walking with the Christian people along the road to Emmaus. In respect to the clothing, he is taking us to the Scriptures, specifically Genesis 3. This is where the Scriptures first speak of clothing. You see, among the first effects of their fall in the garden, Adam and Eve became aware of themselves as naked, as exposed. They became ashamed of the very skin they lived in. Their skin does not adequately cover them; they need more. So Adam and Eve are no longer comfortable with themselves, no longer secure in their own skin, because something has found its way under their skin. Death entered into the world; death got under our skin.

So even as the Lord drives our first parents from the garden, he provides a better clothing for them. He gives them a second layer of skin. The sacred text is quite explicit on the point. God does not give the couple clothing in linen or cotton. The text says specifically he made their clothing out of skins to cover their nakedness; it’s very explicit on the point. This second clothing of skin represents man’s fallen state. Clothing remains throughout history a sustained reminder that we human beings are sinners; we need to be clothed.

And this is how the New Testament speaks of salvation: being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. That garment is described as a white robe that the saints will wear forever. And this consideration brings us to our second point.

Let us speak of Christ. Especially let us reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation. Look at that word, in-car-nation. Caro, which means flesh: incarnation, the en-fleshing of God. Incarnatio in Latin translates the sarcosis of Greek: sarx, which means flesh. Thus the Gospel of John says, O Logos sarx egeneto kai eskenosen en hemin, usually translated as: The Word (O Logos sarx egeneto) became flesh (kai eskenosen en hemin), usually translated as “dwelt among us.” Now this aorist form of a noun, skeneo—skeneo literally means to pitch a tent, and it comes from the usual Greek word for tent which is skene. It corresponds exactly to the Semitic root shakan. Now listen to that word, skene, eskenosen. Can you give me an English word that sounds sort of like that? Anybody? A little louder. Skin! Skin comes from the same root. Skin! Tents were made of skins.

The Word becoming incarnate got under our skin. He pitched his tent, this tent made up of skin. He entered into our skin. He tented in this world. But the skin he assumed from the flesh of his mother was skin derived from Adam and Eve; it was inherited skin, or, if I can make a little pun here, it was the original skin. And for this reason, even the flesh of the Messiah had to be covered. You see, if the humanity of Jesus was different from our own, his death did not redeem us, nor could we be justified by our resurrection. And that’s why in the great Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries, the time of the first four Ecumenical Councils, which did such things as define the canon of sacred Scriptures, which is certainly the skin of Christ. Because to get under the skin of the Scriptures, there’s where we have the word of God.

But the consensus of orthodox catholic Christology of the fourth and fifth centuries was: Whatever was not assumed was not redeemed. That’s why he had to become completely like us, one with us. If his humanity differs in any way from ours, we are not redeemed. And so the mother of the newborn Jesus wrapped his original skin with another layer. She wrapped his flesh with what Luke calls swaddling clothes, and Luke was careful to say this twice. He does not want this detail to escape our attention.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the very garments of Christ which cover his flesh become the medium of grace and healing. Once again, Luke is clear on the point. Luke’s gospel today describes the woman with the chronic hemorrhage as touching the hem of his garment. It’s an extension of his person. That hem of his garment I’ve always sort of imagined it to be the tassel of his prayer shawl. Just reach out with a finger and touch it. And the dynamis, the power of Christ, flows out from his flesh, through his garments, to effect healing on this poor woman who put her trust in him.

And then there is Luke’s description of the Transfiguration. The icon furthest back in the church, the Transfiguration. How does Luke describe it?

Jesus took Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.

Luke is the only one of the evangelists to say that Jesus was praying during the Transfiguration. He goes on.

And as he prayed, the appearance of his face was altered, and his robe became white and glistening.

So the transfiguration, the glory coming forth from the flesh of the Son of God transfigured even his clothing; the symbol of the Fall, the symbol of man’s shame is transfigured by his glory, because Jesus heals and transfigures whatever touches him.

And this consideration brings us to point three: What is Jesus wearing now? What’s he wearing now? Because now he’s risen from the dead. What was he wearing when he appeared to Mary Magdalene and the first believers? He’s obviously clothed. What covered him when he walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus? He wasn’t wearing his other clothing; that had already been taken away from him. So what was he wearing?

Now, we answered that question this morning, didn’t we? In the second of the antiphons, between the litanies. We answered that question this morning. We answer that question every Saturday night at the very beginning of the Sunday service. When does Sunday begin in the Orthodox Church? At what specific point does Sunday begin in the Orthodox Church? It’s during the vespers service when the priest comes into the royal doors: he takes the gospel book and turns it around so the image of the risen Christ is on the front of the gospel book. That’s the point at which we enter Sunday. And what do we always begin by singing when that happens? What are the first words we sing when we see that image of the risen Christ on the gospel book?

The Lord reigns! He is clothed with majesty! The Lord is clothed; he has girded himself with strength!

We don’t just sing it once. How many times do we sing it? Four, five times? We sing that as the antiphon between each verse of Psalm 93, which we chant at that time. It is important to reflect on this brief text. First, “The Lord reigns.” He’s called Lord, Kyrios. The Lord is clothed. What does that mean? What’s the significance of that “Lord”? Go back to the first sermon of St. Peter. “Let the whole house of Israel know most assuredly that God has made both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus who was crucified.” Jesus is Lord: that’s the proclamation of our faith. It’s the second article of the Creed, isn’t it? “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ.” The Holy Spirit gives us two things to say: “Abba, Father!” and “Jesus is Lord!” “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty… I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ…”

Jesus is Lord by reason of his resurrection which we celebrate in very specific ways on Sunday, starting with Saturday night vespers, which is your normal way of preparing for Communion on Sunday. You have to have a very good excuse for not being at Saturday night vespers. It should be a matter of life and death if you’re not at Saturday night vespers. The beginning of your vespers services: your normal preparation for receiving the resurrected body and blood of Christ into our own flesh. This is the way we Christians receive—receive physically—his risen flesh.

Now in what second skin is the flesh of Christ invested? We just had the answer, didn’t we? Glory, might, and majesty! The Apostle John was given a vision of the Lord in his glory, might, and majesty. “I was in the spirit—” When? In hemera tou Kyriou; in the day of the Lord. What day is that? It’s the day when he becomes Lord by his resurrection: Sunday; the day of the Lord means Sunday for Christians.

I was in the spirit on the day of the Lord, and I heard behind me a loud trumpet, a loud voice as of a trumpet, saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.” Then I turned to see the voice.

It’s an interesting way of phrasing it:

...to see the voice that spoke to me, and, having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, One like a Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to his feet, girded about the chest with a golden band—

Exactly as Aaron, the high priest in the Old Testament.

His head and his hair were white as wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like flames of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace. And his voice was the sound of many waters (a voice like the roaring of the waves hitting the rocks). He had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun, shining in its full strength.

Now this vision takes place on the Lord’s day. And that’s the when, the Lord’s day. Where is Jesus when John sees him? He doesn’t see him in heaven. That vision doesn’t come until chapter five in the book of Revelation, when he sees the Lamb standing in the midst of the throne, and the living creatures. What does the text say? He’s in the midst of the seven lampstands. And just where are these seven lampstands? Listen.

The mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.

Seven churches, seven being the number of perfection. He’s standing in the midst of the katholikon, the wholeness of the Church. “I believe in one, holy, catholic”—katholikon, catholic—“and apostolic Church.” He’s walking in the midst of the seven lampstands. The text could not be more clear or more emphatic. The risen Christ, clothed in glory, might, and majesty, is in the midst of the churches. “I am with you, all days. I am with you.”

Emmanuel is with us even now, and this is where he may be found: here, when the faithful people of this Antiochian congregation, the place where the believers were first called Christians, where the faithful people are assembled and while we assemble here today, first of all to hear his word, our hearts burning within us, as he opens to us the sacred Scriptures.

We have come here to Emmaus where the Anointed One was recognized in the breaking of the bread. And here, beloved, the Messiah walks in the midst of the lampstands, holding in his hands the seven stars, clothed with glory, might, and majesty, investing his people with the robes of righteousness. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” he declares. “I have loved thee and given myself up for thee. Reach here thy finger, then, and know the place of the nails. Hide thy soul right here in the Rock of ages that was cleft for thee, that the water and the blood cleanse thee from all iniquity. Rejoice, O Jerusalem, for thy light has come, and the kabod Adonai, the glory of the Lord, is risen upon thee. Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will never pass away.”