Grave Clothes

This has been a difficult week. We lost a friend...young father of 3 kids. Sudden. Very sudden.

Grave clothes...a tough subject. My grandma was buried in a nightgown, but most people are buried in their favorite clothes or a suit and tie. They are dressed in the clothes that people think best reflect them, or in something formal. I supposed there is nothing that is wrong with that. I remember my first funeral as a child, and wondered why Uncle Matt was wearing a watch. I was pretty young...

I remember reading somewhere that when John and Peter reached the tomb after Christ arose that his head cloth was folded neatly. Even in death and re-life, Jesus did things decently and in order! Or maybe the angels wanted things to be neat when the ladies and disciples showed up. I don't know. But there was nothing haphazard about the resurrection, and there will be nothing overlooked when we are resurrected, either.

When Lazarus was raised, I picture him hopping to the entrance...Jesus had to tell them to take the clothes off of his face and let him go! What a picture. Jesus told him to COME FORTH, and he came, wrapped up. Jesus let them undo the binding of the dead. They had wrapped him and He let them unwrap him to show them his ultimate power. They expected a deteriorated, smelly body, and they unwrapped a perfect specimen of a healthy man. They must have looked at those grave clothes and seen the signs of death, and yet their eyes showed them that the results of death were not evidence of the true life given in Christ. The grave clothes of Jesus, hurriedly buried, had to have had blood all over it. It was all there...evidence of His death, but death did not have the ultimate say. There was proof of the torture, proof of the death with the herbs and such, but there was also proof that death does not have the last say.

It didn't for them, and it won't for us. Thank God. Unwrapped we will be someday, clothed in the righteousness of Christ and not in any grave clothes picked by ourselves or our loved ones. I can't wait to see my new wardrobe someday!