I have told my kids (on too many occasions) that I would love to see a spy movie in which the main character’s spy skills are demonstrated by the character’s thorough-going appearance transformations.

He would become she, young and handsome would morph into old and frail, fat to thin, and tall to short…by assigning entirely different actors to play the part in unbroken succession.

Then it occurs to me that is what Jesus did–He came in disguise.  Clues for this theory are in the Gospels–the transfiguration (why take only three disciples?), the times when He prohibits the healed from blabbing about their transformations, the healing of Jairus’ daughter (again, only three disciples?) and then those times after His resurrection when people don’t recognize Him.

God in disguise.

It makes sense when you see Him described in other places in the Bible.  Excuse my French, but Jesus in His “real form” is unmistakably bad-ass. 

Which brings me to the most haunting part of this story of voluntary disguise.  

The Lord of glory, Creator of the universe, Beginning and the End, Lion of the tribe of Judah, naked, eviscerated, gasping on the Cross.

My death.  This is the purest place for me to see who I really am–the person who deserves this terrible end.

He wraps Himself in the vortex of hell to give us access to heaven–undisguised.