Ash Wednesday.

Breathe.

Today marks the start of Lent and my soul is stirring with discontent. Living in this flesh is uncomfortable. I’m aware of my awkwardness inside this dusty skin; distressed at my nakedness.

I’m in need of a covering – something imperishable and outside myself that I put on as garment to guard against the world’s weather. A covering that allows me audience with the Almighty and release for my shame.

In 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 Paul writes,

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

 

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

I think back to Genesis – to the first Adam – when he became dishonorable and weak by his act of disobedience. I remember the way shame clothed them in their nakedness and sent them cowering behind leaves. I remember how uncomfortable man was inside his own skin.

God, in his grace, provided covering. He shed the blood of an animal to provide a way for man to keep company with God once again. He provided covering and man saw  that nothing could happen outside God’s power and providence. The story could have ended there.

God could have started over with a new plan.

But God provided a covering.

Today, that covering is the second Adam, Jesus. Jesus shed his own blood so that no other sacrifice is necessary. No sacrifice is capable of the eternal covering that lifts us from perishable to imperishable, from dishonor to glory, from weakness to power.

This covering is Christ and I’m longing today to shed my skin and get wrapped up in Him. I know Christ’s covering is sufficient and forever, only that my faith daily wavers.

As we prepare for Easter, let us reflect on the already, not yet nature of this covering. We  stand righteous and accepted before God because of Christ’s sacrifice, yet our hope is rooted in a not yet reality that God has still to reconcile all things to Himself.

I’m uncomfortable in this skin, but today I am covered clear to the return of my precious Savior and King.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Here’s a helpful guide for Lent if you are interested: http://www.aholyexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Forgiveness.freshstarts.pdf