In my Sunday Bible class, making our way through Exodus, we came upon God’s instructions to Moses concerning priestly vestments (chapter 28).

Of course, these instructions are detailed and specific, and are not adiaphora for the children of Israel. And these instructions follow other instructions for the tabernacle, including the Most Holy Place where the ark of the testimony and the mercy seat are placed - behind a veil - where God is present for His people. We learn that God takes “holiness” (separation) between the ordinary and the sacred very seriously.

And this is the point of the “holy garments” (v2). They are holy. They are set apart. They are worn by the ministers of the Holy Service. They are worn at holy times and in holy places. And they are not ordinary, casual dress worn outside of this holy place where God comes down to earth in His miraculous Presence. And though God is not big on telling us why he commands such things, we do learn that vestments are “for glory and for beauty” (v2).

So we do learn that God wants his ministers covered by vestments when they are serving in the Holy Place of the tabernacle, especially where He is miraculously present. And these vestments are not particularly practical. For a priest offers sacrifice. He slaughters animals. A practical garment would be a smock or an apron - certainly not finery. One does not dress a deer or grill meat clad in a silken chasuble. But the priest’s garments are to be made of “gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen” (v5) The vestments include gold and gems. There is to be fringe on the hem of the priest’s robe that consists of alternating bells and graven images of pomegranates. The text doesn’t say “graven images,” but that is what they are.. This doesn’t violate the commandment against such images any more than the carved images of the cherubim on the mercy seat and woven into the fabric of the tent do. This is pleasing to God. They are not idols.

From this chapter, we learn that God desires beauty to be the hallmark of holiness in proximity to Him. The old saying, “God don’t like ugly” is true, and God doesn’t even want things that are ordinary or casual to be associated with His Real Presence in worship. God is glorified by beauty. And in fact, the craftsmen who make these garments are to be “the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill (v3). The vestments are so sacred that they are not to be made in a shoddy way by substandard artists and artisans.

Obviously, this is the Old Testament. There are no more Aaronic priests who offer blood sacrifices in the tabernacle or temple. So why is this even in our Bibles? Why did God inspire this to be in our canon? Well, for one thing, this is how our God wants to be worshiped. Moses and Aaron were not consulted. God did not tell the priests to “come as you are” or “be comfortable.” God did not worry that the vestments might be off-putting to some. Nor did God worry about the expense, or take into account the feelings of those who think this is a waste of money that could be used for the poor. God commanded what He wants and expressed His “worship preference.”

In the New Testament church, we no longer offer sacrifices. There is no ark of the covenant, no mercy seat, no veil (it was destroyed at our Lord’s victory on the cross), nor even a temple any more. It too was destroyed. But what we do have is our Lord’s Real Presence at our Christian altars. And clerical vestments serve the same function as that of the priests of the Old Testament: “for glory and for beauty.” Since we cannot see holiness with our eyes, God provides markers, means for the people to know what is holy and what is common. God nowhere ushers people into His Presence saying, “Come as you are” and “be comfortable.” God has made distinctions and separations from the beginning of creation. And though our worship has changed since the Incarnation, the crucifixion, and the Resurrection, the fact that God comes to us in His Presence has not been discontinued or downplayed - let alone abolished. In fact, it is quite the opposite. His Presence is even more intense.

For Christ comes to His people even more intimately than He did in the Old Testament. Instead of having blood thrown on the people, they miraculously drink His blood. Instead of merely eating a lamb that symbolized the crucified Christ to come, they miraculously eat the true flesh of the Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world. And while the veil no longer separates the common from the holy, that removal of the partition does not indicate that the sacred is being profaned by the common, but rather that the ordinary is being blessed by holiness, that we are invited into the inner sanctum. And the closer we are to the altar, the more we naturally react with reverence, with holiness, with a set-apartedness.

The pastor is in the closest proximity to the Lord’s Presence of all. The celebrant has the privilege to speak the Lord’s Words of Institution over the elements as He ministers in the Most Holy Place at the altar - not merely once a year, but as often as He celebrates the Eucharist. And so it is fitting and natural that the pastor does not “come as he is” for the sake of “comfort.” He doesn’t just blend in with everyone else seeking to be “ordinary.” Rather, like the ministers of the Old Covenant, he serves with no ambiguity as to the holiness of this time and place. For the eye can see, “for glory and for beauty” with skillfully-woven fabric that says: “This is no ordinary place.”

All of this is predicated upon the belief in the Real Presence.

When the Israelites lost the temple, they lost the priesthood and the vestments. Their ministers were then rabbis: preachers who led only a Service of the Word. Perhaps they wore some distinctive garments, but the elaborate vestments of the Aaronic priests were a thing of the past. For the Real Presence was gone, the glory departed. And even when the Israelites returned and restored the temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood, they still maintained their services of the Word in synagogue.

Until the sixteenth century, all Christians confessed the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. And so the use of clerical garb was universal, in the East and the West, even considering local and regional variations. No pastor conducted the Divine Service in street clothes. That only changed in the Reformation that came after the Lutherans. The Reformed greatly limited vestments, and the Anabaptists abolished them altogether.

And this was a matter of confession and congruity.

For if you believe that Christ is not present in the Lord’s Supper, if you believe He is present by some kind of spiritual-but-absent way, or if you believe that He is truly and deliberately not there at all, then the place where the Words are said is not a place of remembrance and consecration, but rather a place of only remembrance. And so it would be incongruous for a Baptist or Non-Denominational minister to be vested and to accompany the consecration with ceremony. For that would be to confess, non-verbally, a holiness that they don’t believe is there. That would be to say one thing with one’s confession, and act completely different in one’s practice.

It would be incongruous for a minister of a church that denies the Real Presence to be clad in anything other than street clothes, or to genuflect, elevate, ring bells, make use of incense, sign with the cross, etc. And this is why in Protestant churches there is little (if any) ceremony - whether in vestment or action. For the Service of the Word in a Non-Denominational church is very much like the Service of the Word in a synagogue.

But our Lutheran Divine Service is a continuation of the old Mass - the Service of the Word and the Service of the Sacrament. We believe that Christ is present in both, but His presence in the bread and wine for us to eat and drink is holiness in material form, in space and time, that we take into our bodies. We pastors are no less in the midst of the Holy of Holies than were the Aaronic priests who ministered behind the veil.

And if it would be incongruous for a Baptist pastor to wear alb, cincture, stole, and chasuble - and perhaps a maniple and a pectoral cross, and to chant the Words of Institution with profound reverence, bowing or genuflecting, making the sign of the cross, elevating the elements, and perhaps making use of the ancient customs of bells and incense, then why would the opposite not also be incongruous?

What is the congruity of a Lutheran pastor celebrating the Divine Service and consecrating in street clothes, casually, and without ceremony? And sadly, this is done in some LCMS congregations.

Perhaps this is why our fathers in the faith dedicated an entire article (24) to this very thing in both the Augustana and the Apology. Of course, the vestments are not constitutive of the sacrament. They are truly adiaphora. And if someone in authority insists that it is a sin to not have them, that is a very good reason to enter a state of confession, and celebrate without vestments. This has happened before in Lutheran history. But nobody in authority - neither in the church nor the state - today argues that vestments are essential or legally binding in the Lutheran Divine Service. If a pastor has no vestments for whatever reason, the Lord would still be just as present in the consecrated elements as if he were fully vested.

That said, such conditions are rare. It is the exception that proves the rule. Most of the time, North American pastors have access to at least an alb and stole. And there really is no justification, apart from abject need or emergency, of the incongruity of celebrating the sacrament in the same way that a Non-Denominational pastor would. It would send just as confusing a message as the Genuflecting Baptist would (which, by the way, would be a great pub name).

Such casual celebrations in churches that confess the Real Presence also convey that they are denying the idea of holiness, that the common and the ordinary have subsumed the holy, and that there is nothing “special” about the Eucharist. For unceremony is also a ceremony, and it both confesses and teaches the Real Absence, whether intended or not.

So why would a Lutheran pastor reject the congruity of our confession and the use of vestments, indeed as we have all vowed to do at our ordinations?