Do you remember ever wearing your first uniform? I have photographs of myself when I looked about eight years old, wearing a Salvation Army red jumper, tie, and black shorts. I was so cute! My parents also wore uniforms, which actually cost a lot of money they didn’t have. Then, as I progressed into my teens, I wore the school uniform. I wonder how many normal clothes I had, as my life seemed to be spent in a uniform!
I’m pondering that this morning as I read these next few verses.
“Have Aaron your brother brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, so they may serve me as priests. 2 Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron to give him dignity and honour. 3 Tell all the skilled workers to whom I have given wisdom in such matters that they are to make garments for Aaron, for his consecration, so he may serve me as priest. 4 These are the garments they are to make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a woven tunic, a turban and a sash. They are to make these sacred garments for your brother Aaron and his sons, so they may serve me as priests. 5 Have them use gold, and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and fine linen.” (Exodus 28 v 1-5)
A few years ago I was in Lahore, Pakistan. I was amazed that, compared to the town where I lived at the time, Dewsbury, hardly any of the women wore traditional religious garments like the Jilbab, the hijab, or the Niqab. I asked a shopkeeper why this was the case in my town in the UK, but in Lahore, women wore more Western clothing. I will never forget his answer. “The clothes are a message to the world. The message of Islam does not need to be proclaimed here in Lahore. But you need to hear it in the UK.” I am sure many Imams in Lahore would be disturbed by the shopkeeper’s response and work tirelessly for women’s public covering, but his response has stayed with me.
All around the world, communities are surrounded by religious clothing. Whether that be the Jewish Kippah (the skullcap worn as a sign of humility), the Sikh’s Dastaar (the headwear managing their long hair, representing honour), the Hindu’s Sari (the wrapped garments symbolising purity), or a Nun’s Habit (a head covering symbolising devotion), religious uniform is all around us in some form.
Clothes say something. Not only for those looking but for those wearing them.
“Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron to give him dignity and honour.”
Aaron had nothing within himself to demonstrate dignity and honour before God. It wouldn’t be long before he demonstrated this by shaping a golden calf for the people to worship. But for now, whatever honour he carried into the holy place, to stand before the altar and the ark of God’s presence, God had to put on him first.
The materials matched the Tabernacle curtains: gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen. The priest is dressed to match the house of God. He belongs there.
Now go forward to another priest and another set of garments.
Where Aaron wore a turban marked “Holy to the Lord,” Jesus wore a crown of thorns. Aaron was clothed to receive dignity and honour. Christ was stripped of his.
That is the exchange at the centre of the gospel.
Jesus was stripped of his clothes and laid bare on the cross so that we could be clothed. When Jesus went to the cross, He laid His coat of righteousness over our unrighteousness so that we are now clothed in Christ. God accepts us because His clothes of righteousness are on us.
We don’t come before God in what we have woven together ourselves.
If we try, our efforts will fray at the edges, and none of our attempts at honour will ever fit us.
However, we remind ourselves of the gospel. A garment is made for us, cut to measure and paid for in full.
We are dressed, and perhaps the world doesn’t see the fullness of that all the time, for we are sinners saved by grace, but in Christ, God sees that we are dressed for His glory.
