This week, in the aftermath of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to the United States Congress, there was much speculation on his choice of dress. Some criticized his decision to wear an olive-green sweatshirt before such an esteemed government body. In the photo of President Zelensky emerging from a diplomatic vehicle at the White House to greet the president and first lady, his rather ordinary dress contrasts vividly with the dapper suit and elegant dress of our nation’s first couple.
But an astute fashion critic from The New York Times offered a more profound way of assessing Zelensky’s dress for the occasion. Rather than criticizing his choice of apparel, she suggested that Zelensky was not being sloppy or careless; he knew precisely what he was doing. As she put it, Zelensky “came to Washington, wearing his reality on his sleeves.”[1]
Before a nearly monolithic audience gathered at the United States Capitol, almost uniformly bedecked in dark, expensive suits, the Ukrainian president stood alone at a podium in a dark, olive-green sweatshirt, cargo pants, and boots. It has been his consistent attire since the beginning of the war in his country. The decision to wear this stark outfit before Congress was, it seems, an intentional move so as not to blend in with the cushy environs of a first world Congress, which might be tempted to pretend as if the ten-month old war was less of an issue than when it commenced. Into the halls of a nation immune from the direst aspects of war, President Zelensky wore his reality on his sleeves. It was a clear public, political, even ethical, statement about what is at stake in his own country, and what might correspondingly be at stake in the world.
Every Christmas Day, those of us in comfortable situations gather in our Sunday best, in the glow of gift-wrapping, eagerly awaiting the delicious spreads of food on our tables, the fellowship with friends and family, and the nap as our body processes a stomach full of turkey. And every Christmas Day we come to this familiar passage from St. John’s Gospel. The cosmic words of St. John’s Prologue roll across our mental screens like the opening words of a Star Wars movie. We know this story, even if we receive it as if from outer space. The eternal Word becomes flesh in a human person, “immensity cloistered in [the] dear womb” of Mary, to use the words of John Donne. We get goosebumps at St. John’s words which mark the moment the eternal Word is enfleshed within humanity. It is this day, of all days, when we find God coming to us, wearing his reality on his sleeves.
Yet it might at first appear that God is wearing only our reality on his sleeves, that God has come to blend in with us, to be one of us. In such a view, God has come, not wearing heaven on his sleeves, but allowing himself to be dressed in the swaddling clothes of a baby, and eventually in grave clothes for his burial.
But isn’t there more to it? It is true that God came among us, looking, living, breathing as a human. God came to experience the full reality of human life, for only from within could this world experience its full salvation. But there is more.
For God to enter this world only wearing our own reality on his sleeves would be to countenance no change. To simply blend in with a world unmoored from its original goodness[2] would be to acquiesce to injustice and sin. It would not do justice to the Incarnation we celebrate this morning.
In Jesus Christ, God came into our world, wearing his reality on his sleeves. Yes, he wore our reality, too. Jesus experienced fully, apart from sin, the depths of the human condition. But God entered the human theatre in Jesus Christ with God’s reality on his sleeves so that we could have a taste of a different reality. God came among us dressed in the reality of heaven so that we might be changed, healed, and saved.
And perhaps this is precisely why the world from the birth of Jesus Christ until the present day has so often failed to notice the One who comes among us, wearing his reality on his sleeves. This is our own hazy incomprehension, the darkness that must be pierced by God’s light, according to St. John. We struggle to imagine a God whose deepest reality is the vulnerability of a little baby cradled in a manger. We cannot fathom “immensity cloistered” in a human womb, of which John Donne writes. We cannot imagine a heavenly king dressed in peasant clothes. We suppose that when God’s reality wears human clothes, it's the royal apparel of kings. God’s reality is military might and raw strength. God’s reality is unlimited wealth, unbridled power, and unparalleled status.
But God comes to us wearing his reality on his sleeves, and strangely, God’s reality seems enticingly familiar, though it wears the reality of heaven in the clothes of our reality. And this bewilders us. In some way, without the distortions and warts, we instinctively recognize this reality. Which is why St. John brings us back to the very beginning of this story, which really had no beginning.
There in the beginning, was the eternal Word with God. Indeed, this Word was God. And through the Word all things were made. Nothing—not one drop in the ocean, feather on a bird, or crease in our skin—was made without the eternal Word’s presence and agency. In this marvelous time before the fruit in the garden was taken and people started making their own rules, God’s reality was our reality, God’s rules were our rules.
And then something changed. We started putting on expensive suits and stealing money to buy them. We started using manipulation to get our way. We forgot what our original clothing looked like. We forgot what it was like to be a baby, doted on by loving parents. We forgot what it was like to trust, smile, and share the fellowship of others without criticism or judgment. We forgot what it was like to live without fear. We began to think that what we had was not enough and would never be enough.
And so it was, many years ago, when we had forgotten who we were and who we were to become, God entered our world in a new, unique way. God came among us, not via a grand parade or with blaring bands. God came among us, not in a fancy suit or with a scepter in hand. God came among us wearing God’s reality on his sleeves to teach us what we had forfeited.
In that moment, where St. John’s words give us goosebumps, God came, wearing his reality on his sleeves so that we might recall the clothing we once had worn. And although that moment in time has come and gone, its power has not evaporated. That we continue to gather on this day to sing and share God’s gift of the sacrament is proof enough that we still remember something of our original clothing. It is proof enough that we have received God’s power to become his children.
In baptism, we have been clothed with God’s reality, which strangely enough is the reality that has been ours, too, from before time began, even though we forgot it. And when God entered our world with God’s reality on his sleeves, God brought us heaven to remind us from whence we came and where we are intended to go.
To stare only at the crèche on Christmas Eve, with the straw, animals, and holy family would be to forget what we remember here every Christmas Day. It would be to forget from whence we came and where we are intended to go. It would be to forget the clothes we once had but which we exchanged for fancier ones, no matter the cost to our souls. To cherish the goosebumps this day of “immensity cloistered” in the womb of a virgin is to remember that God came to us—indeed, still comes to us—wearing his reality on our sleeves. God brings us heaven so we will never forget what it looks like. God wears his reality on his sleeves to show us what our reality can be. God captures our hearts and stops our breath with his glory so that, even if for a little while this day, we will remember the reality we once had. And above all, God shows us the reality that is still there for us to have. God holds before us the shining garments of salvation, fitted for our bodies, ready for us to put on and step into heaven.
[1] “The Olive Green Sweatshirt Goes to Congress,” by Vanessa Friedman, The New York Times, December 22, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/style/volodymyr-zelensky-washington-army-green-clothes.html
[2] Term used by John Macquarrie A Guide to the Sacraments (New York: Continuum, 1999)