Last Sunday night, I put my new Christmas jacket on for the North Pole. I stepped out into the hall and immediately got the response I was looking for—people noticed. Usually, at the North Pole, I am volunteering in a specific spot and I have to wait for people to come to where I am. Last year, I got to be the reindeer cam and travel from place to place live streaming the event. This year I wanted to focus on photography and problem solving. I wanted to see volunteers in action and help where I could.
I saw the jacket in Walmart. It was perfect. I bought it immediately. A person came up to me and said, “I can’t hear you, your jacket is too loud.” I accessorized the look with a huge set of jingle bells. I shook the bells as I traveled from place to place. About halfway through the night I came down the Treehouse corridor and saw my jacket on Jim Campbell. He was helping in Christmas Around the World. I jumped at the chance to get our picture taken together. It is not too often that I meet someone who has my particular flair in clothing. Most people would turn and run from this coat. Jim and I bought them and wore them!
Last summer, I was worshipping at Emmanuel AMC in Charleston, SC. At the end of the service a man walked up to me and said, “I have that exact same shirt.” We both said in unison, “Walmart!” I have several shirts from Walmart that are identical to the shirts of men in our church. Occasionally, we are wearing them at the same time. I have over 30 church shirts from ski trip, youth camp, VBS, DNow and other events that hang in my closet. Sometimes I’ll meet someone in town wearing the same shirt.
When we wear the same clothes, adopt the same looks, we sometimes feel kinship. At others times, we feel a little sad that we lost our special find. These two urges pull inside of us—to feel connected and to feel unique.
The call to Christian community is the call to “put on Christ” (Gal 3:27). It means that we are supposed to look like each other. We should bear in our lives, the authentic marks of Jesus. People ought to immediately know where we got our look, our ideas, our values, because they should look like Jesus. The internal problem of sin is that following Christ leads us on a path of self-emptying. The true path leads us away from self-promotion. We have to die to ourselves to follow Jesus. Rebellion is clothed in self and pride. The way of Jesus is dressed in humility. To put on Christ, we have to take off self (Rom 13:14).