I asked the man from Montana if it was true. He said it was.
I had asked him about a practice called jacketing. Jacketing takes us to the wide-open ranges of Big Sky country. Think of thousands upon thousands of sheep grazing on thousands of acres of ranchland. Occasionally, during lambing season, a ewe dies while giving birth. Only one course of action can save her lamb. Because the rancher is too far from his ranch house, and because he is responsible for thousands of sheep, he can’t bottle feed that one lamb. If he tried to lead the lamb to another ewe, the ewe would sniff it and reject it, knowing it wasn’t her own. The lamb can be saved only if another lamb has died. The rancher will skin the dead lamb and stitch its hide around the orphan. It is called jacketing. Then, when the lamb is brought to the ewe, she sniffs the jacketed orphan and smells her own. The jacketed lamb has a family and a future.
Our condition at birth was worse than that of an orphan lamb. We were born dead in the stench of our sin and selfishness. In God’s nostrils, we were the smell of the rotting corpse of our old Adam, our sinful nature. The repulsive smell lingers in the ugly reality of our laziness, the cutting words of our gossip, and the sordid details of our secret lust. God’s command “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) is miles beyond our reach. The unmistakable stench of sin on us proves that we don’t belong to the Father.
Yet thankfully, graciously, our heavenly Father does not reject us. Paul writes, “Indeed, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27).
We are jacketed with Jesus! We are wrapped in the perfect obedience of the one and only perfect Child of God. Now when we are brought under the microscope of God’s holy, limitless scrutiny, our heavenly Father sees only the perfect life of Jesus, without a single stain or smudge. Now God smells the pleasing aroma of the perfect words and works of his own Son, Jesus, offered as our substitute. Baptism wraps us in the clothes of Christ’s obedience. That is why Scripture declares, “For to everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the law, resulting in righteousness.” (Romans 10:4).
In Baptism, God washed us clean and jacketed us in the robes of Jesus’ righteousness. Now we can stand before God. We have a future. We are loved. We are protected. We have life.
Privileged to serve,
Rev. Glenn Schwanke
I had asked him about a practice called jacketing. Jacketing takes us to the wide-open ranges of Big Sky country. Think of thousands upon thousands of sheep grazing on thousands of acres of ranchland. Occasionally, during lambing season, a ewe dies while giving birth. Only one course of action can save her lamb. Because the rancher is too far from his ranch house, and because he is responsible for thousands of sheep, he can’t bottle feed that one lamb. If he tried to lead the lamb to another ewe, the ewe would sniff it and reject it, knowing it wasn’t her own. The lamb can be saved only if another lamb has died. The rancher will skin the dead lamb and stitch its hide around the orphan. It is called jacketing. Then, when the lamb is brought to the ewe, she sniffs the jacketed orphan and smells her own. The jacketed lamb has a family and a future.
Our condition at birth was worse than that of an orphan lamb. We were born dead in the stench of our sin and selfishness. In God’s nostrils, we were the smell of the rotting corpse of our old Adam, our sinful nature. The repulsive smell lingers in the ugly reality of our laziness, the cutting words of our gossip, and the sordid details of our secret lust. God’s command “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) is miles beyond our reach. The unmistakable stench of sin on us proves that we don’t belong to the Father.
Yet thankfully, graciously, our heavenly Father does not reject us. Paul writes, “Indeed, as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27).
We are jacketed with Jesus! We are wrapped in the perfect obedience of the one and only perfect Child of God. Now when we are brought under the microscope of God’s holy, limitless scrutiny, our heavenly Father sees only the perfect life of Jesus, without a single stain or smudge. Now God smells the pleasing aroma of the perfect words and works of his own Son, Jesus, offered as our substitute. Baptism wraps us in the clothes of Christ’s obedience. That is why Scripture declares, “For to everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the law, resulting in righteousness.” (Romans 10:4).
In Baptism, God washed us clean and jacketed us in the robes of Jesus’ righteousness. Now we can stand before God. We have a future. We are loved. We are protected. We have life.
Privileged to serve,
Rev. Glenn Schwanke
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