What Are You Wearing

What are you wearing?  I wonder how many times in our lives we have each said that phrase .  Particularly women, want to know that they will not be overdressed or underdressed to the situation. This has most likely happened to all of us – we’ve shown up somewhere too “fancy” or too casual, which can leave us feeling out of place and uncomfortable. 

Something similar happened in a parable Jesus told, written of in Matthew 22.  In the story Jesus tells, a King invited guests to a wedding feast for his son, but they would not come.  So the King sent his servants to call them, but the guests did not listen, and in fact even killed some of the servants who came to compel them to come to the feast.  The King was angry and said those invited were not worthy.  He then said, “Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.” So the servants went out and gathered as many as they could, and they all came to the feast. 

But when the King came to look at the guests, he saw a man who had no wedding garment, and he said, “Friend how did you get in here without a wedding garment?”  The man was then cast out because he was not wearing the proper attire.  Wedding guests were often given garments to wear in those days, but in this story, perhaps it was offered to the man and he refused, and in so doing dishonored his host. 

In the parable, God is the King, and Jesus is the son.  The servants represent the prophets who came to compel the people to turn from sin and return to God.  The man who did not have the proper attire and was cast out, represents those who reject Christ’s message of repentance and offer of salvation. 

The point is that the only proper clothing for us is his garment of righteousness.  This garment, Revelation 7:14 tells us, is soaked in the blood of the Lamb but somehow made white as snow. 

When we stand before God, this will be the clothing that we need.  For those who have accepted his gift, we won’t stand before him clothed in our own works and good deeds, or our own merit, but donned in his royal robes of righteousness. 

“For our sake he made him be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). 

He is offering royal robes.  So I’ll ask it again- what are you wearing?