Cosmetics. Cosmos. Words we hear often, sometimes in the same day, perhaps never in the same context. For the Greek geek in me, I have to say they are related to a root meaning an orderly arrangement. The “world”, cosmos, has a wonderful, awesome order and meaning, and I suppose our faces should be orderly, too. So, the wonder, the order, the created designs may be seen in us, but extend to all things in the universe. Order out of chaos, this is the way of God.
Our Old Testament readings command respect and order in worship of the LORD. I cannot just go out anywhere and do whatever I want and call it worship. As adults, we are far past that simplistic childhood stage of “drawing worship” in any fashion we fancy with crayons of ignorance or self interest and saying, “Here, God, you like anything we do, don’t you?” My back yard and my kitchen are, indeed, places to pray, Philippians 4:6-7. I must offer daily sacrifice and priestly service, Romans 12:1-2. Also, I must present myself with that Divine body, the church in corporate and communal expression of worship to God, Hebrews 10:25, etc. The worldly worship, worldly–another derivative of kosmos, yet with a negative meaning–cannot be given to our Holy God. What our neighbors do, what the world, that system around us, thinks cannot be handed off to God as though He as a beggar should be glad to get anything at all! And, we would not dare think of sacrificing our children to Molech, but will we sacrifice our children to our own selfish designs of what we call worship and spirituality? Our daily, holy living, our corporate worship must be purposeful, and purposefully driven as God speaks to us through the Spirit in the lives and designs of those Spirit-led apostles and Christians of the Bible, Acts 2:36-42.
The holiness code of Leviticus speaks to the created order and design of human sexuality. Our sexual appetites were made by our Creator for wonderful purposes of life, the intimate, powerful expression of total commitment and reflects the wonder and beauty of God’s own creative powers. Marriage itself, the Divinely prescribed context of that expression, speaks of the absolute love and commitment of God Himself. The widely, worldly, witless expressions of human sexuality touted as natural and flung in our faces today are of the essence of chaos, the exact opposite of created, Divine design and orderliness. They oppose Divine love, and lead only to depraved, and monstrous consequences physically and spiritually, Romans 1:18-32. The mere cosmetics of sex will fail to bring about the Cosmic designs of love.
And, then, what shall we do with Jesus? Obscure the fact of resurrection? “Preposterous!” we say. Yet the worldly, and the worldliness in us, may seek to hide the reality of His presence, His Lordship. Do we want, honestly, the cosmetics of living without the reality and Creator of the Cosmos? The New Testament reading provides a serendipity, perhaps bad English but good theology. We finish reading of the failed attempt of the world to cover up the resurrection, only to begin again in Mark, Mark 1:1, to explore the wonders of God in His Christ. Each day is a Cosmic event, to seek God in this day, to surrender my chaos to His design, His order, His will, His blessing. How shall the young and old order and secure their lives? Psalms 119:9-16.