We’re watching the stocks go up for companies that make hazardous material suits. With the breakout of the Ebola virus the training of healthcare workers, the truth of what we are hearing from the government, and how well do the suits work that are supposed to protect are all questions that I’ve been asked several times from the news media, and regular old people that are worried about what’s going on.
I have been in those suits and I remember being told by somebody who knew what they were doing, that the most dangerous time in the process is taking the suit off. You can be very careful in all that you do, and make one little misstep in removing the suit and you’re in trouble.
I thought about that in terms of the Gospel lesson for Sunday. Many of you commented on the strange idea that a man is thrown into outer darkness because he’s not wearing a wedding garment at a wedding banquet for a King’s son. Scholars will tell you that middle eastern potentates spare no expense when the children are married, even going to the lengths of supplying people with the clothing that they will wear. But I am more interested in the idea of all of us who have been given the role of Christ righteousness. We stand in the wedding feast completely clothes in the righteousness of Jesus. We have a perfect Eternal protective suit that saves us from the world and our own flesh and the power of the devil. Yet even with that great protection, the human heart is so simple, so deceitful, but it will try to remove the protective garments, and will then again be infected with death. The power of God is life. Our hearts are Idol factories that want to manufacture death. God continues supplying us with mercy and peace and strength through the good news of our salvation in Jesus. Eternal protection! Everything we need for life now and life in the world to come!
