As I write, the weather is warming up and, in the words of Prince Hal (in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 1), the sun is “bursting through the foul and ugly mists of vapours that did seem to strangle him.” It’s beginning to look like time for shorts, T-shirts and summer dresses instead of waterproofs and scarves. (Although I recognise that Adam, the Evri delivery driver, has worn shorts all through the winter!)
Clothing is sometimes its own mode of communication. I was accused recently of “power dressing” because I came to a meeting I was chairing in a three-piece suit. I agree I had wanted to be smart, but I had not deliberately set out to be intimidating. Thankfully, a colleague who had seen me wearing the same suit at a very different event the day before was able to defend me; “Nah! This is normal for him…” he said. But it does beg the question about how much our character is revealed by our outward appearance.
In the Coronation service, King Charles was stripped of his royal robes and then dressed again in new attire. This was a deliberately symbolic act. As onlookers, we first saw the King beginning to look very ordinary in his untucked white shirt. For all the might, majesty and power that the office of monarch affords him, underneath, Charles is just a man. It was, no doubt, a humbling experience for him to be undressed in public as he prepared to be anointed. After the anointing, Charles was clothed first in a white robe (the Colobium Sindonis) symbolising purity and simplicity, and then an embroidered golden tunic (the Supertunica) which is intended to remind the King’s subjects that he has been consecrated before God and in the service of God (consecrated meaning simply “set apart for” or “dedicated to” the service of God).
A similar unclothing and re-clothing sometimes used to happen at baptisms (Christenings), where the child being baptised would first be stripped of their own clothing, then dunked into the water in the font before being wrapped in a pure white garment as a sign of their cleansing and new life in Christ. Just like teeth can be whitened (made more white), those baptised are figuratively Christened (made more like Christ). Indeed, the Bible calls us all, whether we are a child at the font or a king before his throne, to take off some of what clothes us and clothe ourselves afresh. In his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul says to his Christian readers, “…you have taken off your old self with its practicesand have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Paul explains that [some of] the practices of the old self are sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language and lies. By contrast, the Christian is to clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, to bear with others and forgive others, forgiving as the Lord forgave them. God’s people are to be less like Adam (not the Evri-man, but the “everyman” who wants his own way) and more like Christ who has washed us clean as we come to him in faith. For Charles, there would have been no crown without the undressing. For us, there is no new life in Christ without humbly repenting of our selfishness and entrusting ourselves to him.
Whatever the weather, may your wardrobe truly reflect the heart of Christ.