CLOTHED IN CHRIST; OUR SHELTER FROM THE STORMY BLAST
Many of you will have heard that Wellington was hit by a massive storm this last Thursday. We’re being told it was the equal, if not worse than the storm that contributed to the Wahine disaster in 1968 (The Wahine was an Interislander ferry travelling from Lyttleton in the South Island to Wellington in the North Island that hit rocks in the entrance to Wellington Harbour during Cyclone Giselle, resulting in the loss of 53 lives).
During the storm on Thursday, winds of 200km/h were recorded on Mt Kaukau, one of the highest peaks in the Wellington region. As the storm lashed the city, we were being encouraged to stay off the roads and to stay indoors.
But I had to go out. I needed to take one of our daughters to a piano lesson. The storm wasn’t yet at its worst, but it was still pretty rough. There were already broken branches and debris lying everywhere and rock falls on some of the hill roads around the city. The wind was picking up in intensity and the rain was almost horizontal! It wasn’t much fun being out in the storm.
So it was just absolutely wonderful to get home and to walk through the front door into a warm and dry house. It was lovely to be home and to be sheltered from the stormy blast.
This Sunday we will hear words from St Paul as he writes to the Galatians – All of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ (Galatians 3:27).
Your baptism is shelter from the storms; in particular the storm that was brewing from before you were even born; remember this – in sin my mother conceived me (Psalm 51:5). This sin thing is a storm that keeps raging and battering away at us all the way through life.
You and I need shelter somewhere; a place we can call home … a place where we can come in from the storms of sin and whatever storms are battering us.
There is such a place, and that place my friends is Jesus. Here, by the grace of our baptism we can be wrapped, clothed, and sheltered in Christ. How wonderful that each day we can come home to him.
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Father God, continue to wrap us and clothe us in Jesus Christ by the grace of our baptism. Thank you for sheltering us from the storms of life and from the storm of sin. Welcome us home to the shelter and warmth of your love. Amen.
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