Will You Lay Your Cloak on the Road?

When Jesus entered Jerusalem in Luke 19 on the back of colt that had never been ridden before, the Gospel says that the people "spread their cloaks in the road".

What a scene this must have been, right? 

Jesus riding along on a colt to the screams and shouts and hoorays of the crowd as they took off their cloaks, their outmost garments, and spread them out before Jesus for the colt to walk upon.

I don't have anything deeply profound to share today, but this image struck me this morning while I was sipping my coffee and can't seem to shake it - this idea of stripping off our outermost garments and laying them before The Christ.

My outermost garment ...

My false self.

My ego.

All the ways I try to mask my insecurities.

... What's your outermost garment these days? 

For me, it's the feeling that I need to have it all together, that I need to have the answers, that I need to be the smartest one in the room. That sounds ridiculous, but that's the world I was brought up in - the world of Evangelicalism; because in that world, you were most successful when you had the answers, when you were (as 1 Peter 3:15 charges) "prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."

Over the course of my Private School education, my Bible College education, my Seminary education, my years as a pastor ... this verse was drilled into my head as a reminder that if I wanted to be anyone in the church and if I wanted to be taken seriously not only as a Christian, but as a leader, then I better study up, I better be able to win arguments, I better be able to debate, I better be able to give an answer to everyone and everyone who questions me.

And so with that idea hardwired into my brain ... sometimes it feels like a cloak, a cloak that masks or covers up all that I feel like I don't know inside. My true self, I guess you could say, is very often one of NOT knowing and UN-knowing and UN-certainty whereas my false self or my cloak is one of knowing and certainty.

I'm at this place in my life where I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the words, "I don't know, but ..."

What do I think about HELL?

"I don't really know, but this is where I am right now."

What do I think about the CROSS?

"I used to be so certain, but nowadays I have so many questions."

How can I possibly believe that Jesus didn't die for my sins when this verse says he did?

"Good question. I guess maybe I don't think that verse matters as much as I used to? I'm really on a journey of figuring it out."

In other words, I'm at this place where I'm loosening my grip on my cloak of certainty, I'm working on laying that cloak before The Christ, and living from my true self ...

The one that has lots of questions.

The one that has some doubts.

The one who (on his best day) feels like has very little to be certain about in regards to faith.

Yes.

At the heart of it I'm coming to realize that the Divine's love for me isn't dependent on how well I know my Bible or on how many answers I can give or on how well I can debate someone who thinks differently than me; instead, the Divine loves me simply because I'm me (for who I am under the cloak) and her hope for me is to live my life from that "under-the-cloak-place".

Who are you underneath the cloak?

What cloak do you need to lay on the road today?

Much love,

Glenn Siepert