Janie B. Cheaney: The gift of garb

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on God’s goodness and the clothes we wear.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: During the Great Depression my great grandmother made an Easter dress for my mother. It was black, because black was all they could afford. As a typical teen, my mother was ashamed to wear it, but every girl had to have a new dress for Easter. Perhaps that memory explains my own Easter dresses growing up. My sisters and I were a pastel bouquet every spring, even if Mama had to make the dresses herself.

For humans, clothing is both glory and shame. Even the most primitive bushman wears something, if only a rag about the middle. But like most everyday phenomena, dressing ourselves gets weirder and more perplexing as we think about it. It began as desperation, when Adam and Eve frantically grabbed fig leaves to cover themselves. The leaves were laughably inadequate, so the Lord provided animal skins—borrowed righteousness owed to the sacrifice of an innocent creature.

Clothes soon became much more than covering. They were booty when Achan hid them in his tent, reward when Naaman offered them to Elisha, symbol when Kings exchanged their finery for sackcloth. Also moral obligation, as in “Don’t take the poor man’s cloak as surety.” The amount of labor that went into producing a single garment made it valuable: Jesus’ executioners considered even his unremarkable tunic worth gambling for.

For most of human history, status and position dictated what one could wear. During Shakespeare’s time, for example, the poor were restricted to “sad colors,” while tradesmen could indulge in a little more variety. But the full spectrum was reserved for the rich, because dyes were very expensive. Not until the early 19th century, when textile manufacturing kicked off the Industrial Revolution, did clothing gradually transition from a costly commodity to a cheap one.

Today clothes pile up on garage-sale tables, clearance racks, resale shops, and our closets—routinely purged every spring. As we take abundant food for granted, so we do abundant garb.

We’ll never go back to the garden; clothes are a necessity. But as it was in the beginning, they are also a gift. The variety of available styles allows us to tell the world who we are by how we dress. But Christians can also tell the world whose we are. Discussions about “modesty” concern what not to wear, but what to wear deserves thought as well. And incidentally, the male of the species should be aware that excessive sloppiness can be as immodest as suggestiveness. Color, style, appropriateness, and flattering lines complement the wearer, but might they also praise our Maker?

Near the end of That Hideous Strength, the conclusion of C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, some of the female characters are trying on gowns for a special occasion. Each finds the perfect dress—for the others. No one chooses her own, and the wardrobe contains no mirrors. Each woman’s pleasure comes from pleasing the rest, and He who shaped each woman is also pleased.

That’s how it will be some day: our bridegroom has chosen the perfect outfit for us to wear to our wedding. It’s a robe of righteousness—no longer borrowed, but our very own. From the gracious hand of our redeemer.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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