“Have your brother Aaron, with his sons, come to you from the ISraelites to serve me as priests – Aaron, his sons Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. Make holy garments for your brother Aaron, for glory and beauty. You are to instruct all the skilled artisans, whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, to make Aaron’s garments for consecrating him to serve me as priest. These are the garments that they must make: a breast piece, an ephod, a robe, a specially woven tunic, a turban, and a sash. They are to make holy garments for your brother Aaron and his sons so that they may serve me as priests. They should use gold; blue, purple, and scarlet yarn; and fine linen.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Mark Twain is famous for all sorts of literary things. His books, of course, are the most widely known, but he’s also famous for all kinds of witticisms. He was like the Benjamin Franklin of his era. One of his aphorisms was the observation that clothes make a man. I never liked that idea very much growing up because I wasn’t ever a big fan of having to dress up for anything (much to my parents’ regular frustration…something my own kids are paying me back for now.) And yet, as I’ve grown and gained a little bit more wisdom, I understand better just how right he was. This next part of the tabernacle instructions doesn’t tell us anything about what it looks like. It’s all about what the people leading worship in it were supposed to wear. Let’s take a look at the introduction to this next section as we prepare to examine all the priestly garments in the coming days.

Dressing up as we would define it today, used to be how everybody dressed all the time. If you were going to go out in public, you were going to look respectable. That was just the culture of the day. Dressing for church, though, often went just a little bit even beyond the normal dressing up people did. The thought was that God deserved our best, something that should be reflected in how we present ourselves. As the culture changed over time, people began dressing a bit more casually, but the idea of someone’s Sunday best remained. Today we are losing even that.

In most churches today in my culture, people dress how they are most comfortable for the setting. People from more senior generations tend to dress a bit more formally. People from more recent generations tend to dress a bit more casually. There’s always just a little bit of generational tension here. On the one hand, no one should feel like they can’t come to church or aren’t good enough for church simply because they don’t have the right clothes to wear. On the other hand, there’s at least something to be said for communicating by what you wear that engaging with the presence of God alongside the rest of the body of Christ is a significant affair.

For me, I’ve always worn a suit when I preach. In my first church setting, that was expected. Some of the practical ministry advice I received in seminary was that the preacher should always be dressed just a step above what most of the people are wearing as a means of inviting respect for the position. I still wear a suit or at least a jacket and tie on Sundays today. I don’t know that I would really be expected to dress like that any longer by many in the congregation, but I’m used to it. And, if I were to show up more casually than most of the congregation, that would communicate something about just how seriously I take the duties I’m performing. The clothes we wear really do make a statement.

For Aaron and his son who would serve as Israel’s first priests, what they wore mattered too. Their clothes needed to communicate the seriousness of their role as well as the holiness of the God they were serving. Their uniform, if you will, needed to clearly set them apart as different from the rest of the community. It wasn’t to mark them out as better than anyone else in the community. Indeed, as would very soon be demonstrated, they were susceptible to the same faults and failings as anyone else. But God in His wisdom appointed them to serve Him on behalf of the people as priests and they needed to look the part.

As a result, God gave instructions for a special set of clothes to be made for them. They were to be specially made by skilled craftsmen who had been themselves appointed by God to that task. They were to be made “for glory and beauty.” The glory mentioned here should not be thought of as God’s glory directly. Rather, this was about elevating the image of the priests while wearing these clothes. The clothes were not only to mark them apart as different from the rest of the people simply by virtue of being different from what everyone else wore, but they were to be designed such that when the people looked at them, they were impressed. Any real glory, though, was always and only going to be a reflection of God’s glory. The beauty was a part of this as well. It is the same principle at play as when you go and interview for a job. You want to look the part. These clothes were about making the priests look the part of the role they were playing. We’ll talk next week and beyond about the clothes themselves and the various symbolism they contained both for the people and the priests.

I want to think just a bit further today, though, about this idea of the priests playing a part. I mean that, of course, in the sense that they were fulfilling the role God had called them to fill for the sake of the rest of the community. If they were not careful, though, it would be very easy for this special role to become little more than a part they were playing as if in a grand production. Just because they put on the special clothes did not make the priests what God intended for them to be. Clothes may make a man, but if the man isn’t who he is without the clothes, the clothes are nothing more than a costume.

Indeed, what is on the outside isn’t what makes us right with God. It’s what’s on the inside. If our outside doesn’t match our inside, we’re not ever doing anything more than putting on a show. The Greek word for this kind of an actor gave us our word hypocrite. And, God’s not much interested in hypocrites. People who dress the part, but don’t have the substance to honestly fill the role receive some of the strongest condemnations of anyone in the Scriptures. False prophets like this could even been assigned the death penalty under the Law of Moses. Jesus compared the Pharisees who dressed the part without actually filling the role to whitewashed tombs. They were pretty on the outside, but the inside was rotten to the core.

So, while it may be worthwhile to dress to impress in certain situations, our most important work will always happen on the inside. We must make sure that if we proclaim ourselves to be followers of Jesus, we have the character to match our confession. If we properly hit that mark, it won’t much matter what we wear on the outside. The glory of the God who dwells within us will eventually shine out for everyone to see.