Weekly Devotion

January 19, 2025

What to Wear?

Have you ever wondered what to wear for a special occasion? Perhaps the trend to go casual is becoming more and more acceptable in more places. Many years ago, when we went on a cruise for our 30th wedding anniversary, I saw someone denied entry to a dining room that required formal wear. A number of years later, at an all-inclusive resort, I was looked up and down but allowed entry to a dining room that had a dress code. Perhaps I did not look “formal” enough. Years later, at a different resort, we noticed that the requested dress code was not enforced. Shorts, T-shirts and sandals were just fine.

In Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet, there seems to have been a dress code that was enforced (Matthew 22:1-14). When the king spotted a man without wedding clothes, he was asked how he got in. When he was speechless, he was tied hand and foot and thrown outside, “into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13).

The king had gone to great lengths to fill the wedding hall. After invitations were refused, ignored and his servants killed, he sent other servants to the street corners to invite anyone they could find, “the bad as well as the good” (Matthew 22:10). God’s invitation to attend the wedding banquet of His Son goes out to all people throughout all ages. It is the good news of the gospel. A Savior has been born for “all people” (Luke 2:10). God does not want anyone to perish, He is patient with us, wanting “everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

With regards to “not wearing wedding clothes”, a footnote in my NIV Study Bible says, “It may have been the custom for a host to provide guests with wedding garments … The failure of the man in question to avail himself of a wedding garment was therefore an insult to the host, who had made the garments available.”

Revelation 19:7-8 says, “The wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)” The fine linen was given. The righteous acts are also the work of Christ. “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Apart from Christ, we are all sinners. “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). We need a Savior. “In Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ (Galatians 3:26). Isaiah 61:10 says, “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of His righteousness.”

As a child, my mother taught me a short German prayer, “Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit, das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid. Damit will ich vor Gott bestehn, wenn ich in’n Himmel werd eingehen.” [Christ’s blood and righteousness are my adornment and garment of honor. This is how I want to stand before God when I enter heaven.] It is the only way we can stand before a holy God.

The apostle Paul urges to wake up and clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:11-14).

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city (Revelation 22:14).

Written by Anna Epp