“Clothes make the man!”  Or so they say.  While we recognize a shallowness in this sentiment, we also recognize that it has some merit.   ‘Dressing up’ makes us feel different, act differently, aspire to things beyond ourselves.   A period drama without elaborate costumes lacks credibility.   A tux adds solemnity to a groom and maturity to a prom king.   A soldier is somehow more a soldier in fatigues than in gym clothes.  And our young children, when they don ‘dress up’ clothes, take up adultish things with remarkable parody and clarity. 

Our dress often communicates ‘what’ and ‘who’ we desire to be.  And how we want to be known.  An outward expression of aspiration and identity.   All parents observe this as their teenagers experiment with style and try on identities with their fashion choices.  Ironically choices that react against the parent’s dress and unwittingly resurrect the fashion of the parent’s younger selves.   As much as we might protest, our dress speaks to what and who are important to us.  Clothing projects our values, our tribe, and our desire for becoming.

Clothes have always done this.  In the beginning God made Adam and Eve holy and happy.  Nothing was lacking.  No clothes were needed.  But after their fall, they sought clothes to cover up what they had become and get back to what they had been.  Plant-based fashion was not enough.  So, God graciously clothed them in the skins of sacrificial animals.  Clothes that reminded them daily that fellowship with their heavenly Father depended on the blood of another.  Theologians say they were dressed in an alien righteousness.   Their clothes made a statement.  

This is seen more dramatically in the clothing God commanded for priests in the Tabernacle.   God promised to dwell with his people.  But God’s imminence always creates a problem for us.   His presence makes us want to hide.  Like Adam and Eve, when we sense him drawing near we hide because our sin exposes us to his holiness and judgment.   How can we draw near to him and live?  God instructs Moses to make a dwelling place for his presence and furnish it with the means of grace for God’s sinful people to approach their holy God.   But God’s means of grace require a mediator – one who is morally blameless, holy, and without sin.   But where is such a mediator to be found?

Until “the fullness of time had come” and God would “sen[d] forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law,” God graciously provided priests to function as mediators of the means of grace.   But these priests faced two significant problems in their mediatorial work.  First, they were mortal.  The author of Hebrews notes, “the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.”   And second, every priest had his own sins to deal with.  None were ‘Holy to the Lord.’   How could they approach God to make atonement for the people when they were exposed to God’s judgement by their own sin?

To cover their condition, God instructed Moses to make for them special clothes.  Clothes that would cover them with an alien righteousness.   Clothes that would instruct the people to long for and look for a mediator who, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, “is very man and perfectly righteous; and yet more powerful than all creatures; that is one who is also very God.”  The priestly clothes protected unholy men from the wrath of a Holy God as they drew near to him in worship.    But this is nothing new.  Since the garden, man has needed to be covered by the righteousness of the perfect sacrifice.  And so, the Bible calls us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

What are you wearing?   Are you dressed in the alien righteousness of Christ?   Are you approaching God in the beautiful garments of salvation provided for you?  Or in the filthy rags of your own works?  God offers you a new, gracious wardrobe.  Maybe it is time to change clothes.   Join us as we examine Exodus 28 and consider how the priest’s clothing instructs us to dress in the righteousness of Christ.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.