Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Garments of Salvation
Isaiah 61:10-62:3 (Evangelical Heritage Version)
10I will rejoice greatly in the LORD.
My soul will celebrate because of my God,
for he has clothed me in garments of salvation.
With a robe of righteousness he covered me,
like a bridegroom who wears a beautiful headdress like a priest,
and like a bride who adorns herself with her jewelry.
11For as the earth produces its growth,
and as a garden causes what has been sown to sprout up,
so God the LORD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up
in the presence of all the nations.
2:1For the sake of Zion I will not be silent.
For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be quiet,
until her righteousness goes forth shining brightly,
and her salvation burns like a torch.
2Nations will see your righteousness,
and all kings will see your glory.
You will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will assign to you.
3Then you will be a beautiful crown in the LORD’s hand,
and a royal diadem in the palm of your God.
Garments of Salvation
I.
There she stands, heart pounding, in front of her mirror. It seems like it’s been a long time coming, but the day is finally here. It’s the day she’s waited a lifetime for—her wedding day.
She reaches for her dress that was so carefully selected to look just right for the big day. But something’s off. Her beautiful gown—never even worn before—is threadbare and stained; it’s falling apart at the seams. Tears well up in her eyes, and one trickles down her cheek.
Off in another room, the groom looks at his tux. This isn’t what he selected, either. It’s patched and faded; it smells of old sweat—and regret.
Neither bride nor groom feels ready now. They feel unworthy. The guests are arriving; the music has started. What to do? Without their finery, the bride and groom feel naked and alone; ashamed, unworthy, nobodies in rags.
Peace and joy, we sang of ten days ago. Harsh words from family gatherings echo in your mind. Perhaps after the passage of time they’ll make the cut for the next batch of holiday horror stories and bring a few laughs. Perhaps, but right now the stories don’t seem funny at all; they’re painful. New Year’s resolutions have already been broken; the credit card bills are coming in, and you’re not sure how they’re going to get paid.
How much of your peace and joy was strained? How much was feigned? Just like Christmas clothing put on for the holiday party, the problem is what’s underneath.
Way back near the beginning of time, Adam and Eve found out what that felt like after the first sin. “The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7, EHV).
II.
When they realized they were naked, Adam and Eve had no closet there in the Garden of Eden. Until sin entered the world, they didn’t need clothes. What to do? “They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for their waists” (Genesis 3:7, EHV). The nakedness of sin produces shame, fear, and guilt before God. Just like Adam and Eve, we want to run from God and hide, or cover ourselves with garments of our own making.
Or maybe we turn to the closet.
Wedding dress in tatters; a shabby and smelly tux, frantically the bride and groom look for something else. There’s got to be something in the closet that will do.
The unready bride paws through dresses and skirts and tops. She checks every hanger. The closet seems to hold nothing but failure. She sees the dresses from old, failed relationships. Skirts stained by lies she told herself are hanging there, too. Tops patched together with false pride hang in the far corner. Nothing fits; nothing looks remotely worthy of the special day.
The groom has his own problems. He looks woefully at his best suit. It’s the one he wore when he pretended everything was fine at work. Hanging next to it is the one he wore when he nursed grudges for years.
Fig leaves torn from the nearest tree made into coverings don’t work. Adam and Eve found that out.
Filthy garments don’t work, either. Zechariah talks about Joshua, the high priest, representing the people of Israel: “Now Joshua was clothed in filthy clothing and was standing in front of the Angel” (Zechariah 3:3, EHV). The Hebrew says Joshua’s clothing had excrement on it. Totally inappropriate to stand before the Lord.
Isaiah talked about filthy clothing, too. Shortly after the words of our text he wrote: “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth” (Isaiah 64:6, EHV).
As Isaiah wrote, God’s people sat in the ruins of Jerusalem. They were dressed in the filthy garments of their sin. They had tried to rebuild with their own efforts. There were new kings, new alliances, new promises. But everything kept unraveling.
The problem isn’t the closet—not for Adam and Eve, nor for the bride and groom, nor for you and me. Everything we touch turns to rags because our hands are unclean. We promise God we’ll do better in the new year, but just barely into January we’re exposed.
III.
Despair has settled in for the unready bride and groom. There is nothing to wear. Not only nothing worthy of the occasion, nothing worthy at all. The organ music is about to start.
“I will rejoice greatly in the LORD. My soul will celebrate because of my God, for he has clothed me in garments of salvation. With a robe of righteousness he covered me, like a bridegroom who wears a beautiful headdress like a priest, and like a bride who adorns herself with her jewelry” (Isaiah 61:10, EHV). The King steps in to deal with the situation.
The nakedness and inappropriateness of bride and groom are both covered. They could never hope to find such finery in their own closets. There are garments that shimmer like nothing they’ve ever seen before. There’s a robe woven of pure righteousness. There’s a gown embroidered with salvation itself.
Without any scolding, the LORD, himself, dresses them. The groom gets a turban like a priest. The bride is adorned with jewels that catch every light in the room.
And, greatest of all wonders, these garments aren’t borrowed. They are gifts.
The King himself wore the rags—on a cross outside Jerusalem. He willingly put them on so that he could clothe his people in his own perfection. Isaiah saw it, centuries before it happened.
“For the sake of Zion I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth shining brightly, and her salvation burns like a torch. 2Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings will see your glory” (Isaiah 62:1-2, EHV).
Bride and groom, dressed in robes of righteousness and garments of salvation, walk down the isle. The guests gasp—not at any shame, but at glory and beauty and righteousness. The bride’s gown makes the flowers bloom brighter; the groom’s robe makes him appear taller than any earthly king. They dance at the reception with reckless abandon, laughing because they know the truth—all of this is possible, every step, every twirl, only because the King dressed them.
This is your life and mine. Christ the King dressed you in his righteousness at your baptism. Here at his table he feeds you with the wedding feast of his body and blood, given and poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.
You are not nobodies in rags. You are the delight of the King.
IV.
“You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will assign to you... 4You will never again be called Abandoned, and your land will never again be called Desolation, for you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Married, because the LORD delights in you, and your land will be married” (Isaiah 62:2, 4, EHV).
The King does one more astonishing thing. He takes the old, forgotten name tags from their rags—“Abandoned” and “Desolation.” He throws them away. He writes their new names in gold piping, as befits a wedding: “My Delight Is in Her” and “Married.”
He says: “Then you will be a beautiful crown in the LORD’s hand, and a royal diadem in the palm of your God” (Isaiah 62:3, EHV).
Weddings aren’t the end—they’re a beginning. The newly married couple step out into the city as bearers of the King’s beauty.
So do you and I. Dressed in Christ’s righteousness, carrying our new name of “Child of God,” we go into our ordinary weeks—as parents, workers, neighbors. We go, shining with a glory that isn’t our own.
The world will see it. Nations will notice. One day, at the final wedding feast of the Lamb, every eye will see the full splendor.
Until then, dance in the garments he gave you—garments of salvation. Thanks be to God! Amen.
