Glorious In His Apparel

The Church does not err when she interprets Isaiah’s vivid words of our Lord Jesus Christ. From the Edom of His obedience and the Bozrah of His anguish, He returns a conqueror. Our Deliverer is not decked in such embroidery as commanders and generals are accustomed to wear:

But to that “dying crimson” we owe life and hope and all things. Indeed, Christ’s dress is strange and unusual; but its very strangeness is its excellent glory.

The Swaddling Bands: –

We recall them. They are the glorious apparel of our God. They publish the miracle of His lowly love. You do not find other biographies announcing that, when the man they portray was born, his mother swathed him round with a baby’s dress. It would be foolish to commemorate the universal fact; this is the helplessness with which you and I start our journey of life. Why should the gospels set in the forefront that which is too trite to be explained with reference to anybody else? It is because there is nothing trite about it when it has to do with Jesus Christ. It is the wonder of wonders that He is so weak and small as to need a mother’s ministry and an infant’s clothes.

For He was God who made earth and heaven; God in whom we live and move and are. For a season God has elected to put away His divine government, and His eternal honour and powers. With a man’s limitations, He has entered the world of men. And He assumes our nature – not in its prime, but in the frailty of its first beginnings. Why does He do it?

So that no experience of ours may remain outside His experience, His sympathy, and our redemption. So that little children, equally with grown men, may say – “This is our God for ever and ever.” Let us give thanks for the swaddling bands.

The Hem of His Garment: –

For that is fresh proof that our Lord is glorious in His apparel. It preaches the miracle of His healing grace.

Sometimes in Israel, a leper was so full of his hideous disease that it passed from himself into his clothing. It was the opposite with Christ. He was so full of restoring virtue that His cures not only leaped from His fingers and shone from His eyes, and sang in His voice and tingled through His flesh, but infected His raiment with sweet and vital influences. Down to the blue fringe of His long loosed outer robe as well as His matchless person, there was medicinal strength; so that, when a trembling woman, whose case was hopeless, touched it and Him, her whole frame was shot through with the sting of sudden and delightful health.

It is rich comfort to know that we cannot get near Him without His salvation ending our misery and transfiguring ourselves. We “touch” Him in so many ways: in a Bible verse that we have read fifty times without any apparent emotion; or when kneeling to pray, we can only manage to utter, “Lord, save me!” Let me lay my poor hand on the hem of His garment, and my iniquities are forgiven, my diseases are healed, my life is redeemed from destruction – for, strong is the grace of my good Physician.

The Seamless Robe: -

We remember it. It is Christ’s glorious apparel. It points us to the miracle of His unflecked holiness.

No doubt, Chrysostom has a point when he insists that this inner coat of our Lord was a peasant’s dress, betokening “the poorness of His garments; and that in His clothing, as in all things, He followed a simple fashion.” But Josephus, I recall, writes that among the sacred vestments of the Jewish High Priest was a tunic, woven without seam; and in the tunic of Jesus, I prefer to see a hint of His priestly sanctity. Something of spiritual value there is – something to arrest attention – in the coat which those four reckless men under the Cross had not the will to tear, but which they determined to keep intact.

For certain, the Christ who comes to bless us is clothed with righteousness as a garment. It demonstrates His fitness to champion our derelict cause. If one slightest flaw had been found in Him, He would have had to provide atonement for Himself. But because there is no flaw, He is free to bring us pardon and peace. Yes, and His perfection is the assurance of our perfecting. He takes care we are conformed to His stainlessness. So, He will dwell within us by His Spirit; and breathe into us His own breath; and, as we look to Him, He will robe us in His own purity that cannot be rent asunder.

The Grave Clothes: –

Is where we would turn to last of all. They are His glorious apparel. They proclaim the miracle of His overflowing life.

In Christ’s rock tomb was a long ledge of stone, and, two inches higher, a recess. On the ledge the body had reposed in its sleep; in the recess the head was pillowed. And, on the third morning, Peter and John, coming to the grave, saw a surprising thing. The body clothes lay by themselves, where they had been when the body of the Lord occupied them; and on the upper level, lay the napkin which had been twisted like a turban round His brow. “Wound round,” is the remarkable word that John uses to describe it; like a turban, still erect, although the blessed head had gone. No wonder they “believed.” That napkin told them that, of His own accord, Jesus had passed out of it and away. If men had taken Him, they would have taken His wrappings too, or simply tossed them into a heap. But Christ Himself had withdrawn; easily, soaring, conquering. And His resurrection body, being so different from the body in which He had toiled and bled, there was no disturbance of the raiment that covered Him in His chamber of peace.

So – nothing hampers Him now that He lives again. No restriction curb Him in that humanity which He keeps, and will keep, through the ages of the ages. He goes where He chooses to go; He does what He wills to do. And He gives that which He possesses to us – a spiritual life here, and a glorified eternal life hereafter – disentangled from the grave-clothes, and released from every chain.

From the night of the Manger to the morning of the Garden tomb, how singular and how glorious is Christ’s apparel.