The Gold Sash

TO READ: Revelation 1:12-20

Standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest.

Revelation 1:13

Have you ever wondered what Jesus looked like —what it would have been like to see him? I have. We are not given a physical description of Christ our Lord in his humanity, save that we know he lived within a human body. We do know, however, what he looked like in his divinity. John, the apostle, saw him with his own eyes and tried his best to capture that vision of the glorified Christ for us.

He was told to write what he saw in a book and send it to the seven churches in Asia (Revelation 1:11). This sight of Jesus would help the disciples in these young churches, who were facing prison, persecution, and death, to be faithful to the end. John also wrote to people who were being told that Jesus was a nobody and assured them that Jesus was a somebody —a poor unknown carpenter on earth, but the King in heaven.

He was “wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest” (Revelation 1:13). Only the most important people wore long garments and only kings wore golden sashes. In the Old Testament Scriptures, such a sash (sometimes called a “girdle”) worn around the waist denoted power and authority. Such sashes were worn by taskmasters. But when the sash was worn around the chest, it denoted faithfulness and affection.

John was in terrible trouble just because he was a Christian, but when he saw the gold sash, he remembered how much he was loved! Do you need to remember that too?