Dress Your Heart for Worship

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Current revision as of 19:04, 26 February 2026

Are you ever surprised at the state you’re in when you arrive at church? The decent clothes you don only paper over a reluctant and doubting heart. Or a fight ensued in the car — not a new fight, just the same old predictable tension. During the opening songs, you can’t focus. In the company of saints, shiny hooks with tempting bait drop all around you: Here, take a delicious, judgy bite about his marriage. Chomp down on that anger-lure as you remember what she said. Snack on the envy of a guy who didn’t deserve his success.

Wild thoughts swing through your mind during God’s praises. What in the world is the matter with me? you ask yourself.

Remarkably, a seventeenth-century poet and Church of England pastor knew just what we go through. In his brief poem “Aaron,” George Herbert prepares for church by comparing himself to Israel’s first priest, recalling the description in Exodus 28 of all the accoutrements of holiness in which Aaron dressed as a representative of both the Lord and his people. Dismayed, Herbert honestly describes his present state. (I’ll adjust the last line to help us make the connection.)

Profaneness in my Head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where there is no rest,
[For worship] thus am I dressed.

That description resonates with many of my Sunday mornings. I should be preparing with holy thoughts, but “profaneness” with all its distractions races around my head. From my heart should flow ardent love for my Savior. But such affection gets clogged by the “defects and darkness” that inhabit me. While the little bells on Aaron’s robe sounded harmony with God’s will, I have “a noise of passions” that deadens my praise.

Herbert knows me. What am I to do? Thankfully, the poem shows two ways forward.

1. Confess Your Shabbiness

The poet’s honesty is itself a strategy for combating the onslaught of discord that prevents full-hearted worship. If I get lost in dismay over what pops into my head or seizes my heart, the Accuser will be in my ear. “What kind of Christian are you? You don’t deserve to be here. If they only knew . . .” I’m in a losing battle if I simply try to block out all the horrible thoughts and discordant feelings that wind through me. Futile is my resolution: “If I try really hard to be super good and holy focused, maybe they’ll leave me alone this week.” They won’t.

Far better is greeting them as unwelcome yet persistent visitors from the neighborhood of my life. For example: “Oh, are you back, Madam Pride? That’s another outrageous suggestion about my importance. But this morning, no thanks. Just keep on walking until you exit by the back door. Ah, I recognize you, Dr. Control. Yes, it would be nice if everyone had to do it my way. But as you know, that’s never going to happen. So, keep moving. My, that’s most graphic, Mr. Lust! But not very original. You’ve used that one before. Now, all of you lot just pass right through and go out the back door. I’ll deal with you later.”

Herbert knows we must not deny the reality of these “defects and darkness.” Nor can we let the shame of realizing what’s really inside us ruin our worship. We own their presence and then tell them where to go.

2. Dress Yourself in Christ

Of course, merely dismissing these internal foes is not enough. We need a better tune circulating in us, one that arises from a deeper, higher Source. Here’s where the literal meaning of repent assists us. To “change one’s mind” means turning to another source of thought and feeling — to another personality, someone outside of us yet truly connected to us. This is one very practical benefit of gazing on Jesus. He is a better head for us (Ephesians 4:15). He has different thoughts to pour through us. He has better feelings to inspire in us. As we prepare for worship, we can choose intentionally and consciously to rely on our union with him. Here’s how Herbert puts it:

Only Another Head
I have, another heart and Breast,
Another music, making live not Dead,
Without whom I could have no Rest,
In him I am well dressed.

The third line of this stanza is the very center of the poem. It’s the turning point. There is another music. This one neither slays the poet nor shames him. Rather, it lifts Herbert out of discord into harmony.

The poet’s affection rises as he considers this further:

Christ is my only Head,
My alone only heart and Breast,
My only music, striking me even dead,
That to the old man I may Rest,
And be in him new Dressed.<?blockquote> “My alone only heart.” There is a childlike ardor in these words. My alone only. You’re my all, Jesus, the one I most deeply want. You’re the heart of my own heart. You’re my true life. Without you, I am left for dead in the old self. With you, the old self is left for dead while I live in the new life you have for me. Every Sunday — indeed, every day — we can begin with a time of reckoning akin to Herbert’s poem. What am I called to be? God’s own child and devoted worshiper. But what is within me? Profaneness, defects and darkness, a noise of passions. I deny nothing. But who is Christ Jesus? The head of his new creation. And he has joined me to himself. I can get dressed in Christ and all his benefits right now (Romans 13:14). The very music of our lives can and will be tuned by our Savior. The more we let the song of his life sound through heart and mind and soul, the more our little story gets taken up in his huge story of redemption. He lives in us. So, we can be the Aarons we are called to be in worship. Christ in us is the music that makes us alive. Clothed in him, we can arrive at worship with the words of Herbert’s triumphant conclusion: “Come people, Aaron’s dressed!”