Here are at least nine good reasons:
- First, they wear them as a matter of conscience. For the reasons that follow this one, they believe that it would be wrong for them not to wear them in a worship service they were leading. While they know and love good men who see the question differently, they are bound by their consciences to do what they believe is right.
- In life, we wear uniforms to represent another. When a judge wears a robe, it is because he is standing in place of the state while on the bench. You could make the same analogy with a police officer. He doesn’t wear the uniform because he always drives better than you do, but because he is representing another. When a minister wears a robe, it is because he is speaking for God in the pulpit.
- Practically speaking, when the minister wears a black gown, he recedes into the background because you aren’t focused on his tie or his shirt, but on his voice.
- For the minister, there is a death to self when he wears that robe. In other words, he is less a celebrity or a public speaker and more of an ambassador with a message.
- For the congregation, it visually represents that what we are doing is different from everything else we do in the course of the week. It separates the sacred from the mundane.
- In an age of triviality in worship, it signals visually that what we are doing is serious and sober. It is also joyful and glad, which is why the minister smiles when he wears his robes, too.
- In an age that rejects authority everywhere (chiefly God’s authority), the robe symbolizes that God has delegated some of His spiritual authority to ministers and elders. It is both a privilege and a burden for them to be set apart to bear this authority.
- Why did ministers start wearing black robes in the first place? Before the Reformation, priests wore elaborate colored robes. Sometimes these priests had purchased their office, rather than trained for it. The Reformers (and especially the Presbyterian branch) believed in an educated ministry — that men needed to be well-trained to handle the Word of God with care and skill. The black robes came from the academy; they demonstrated that the pastor had not purchased his office, but had “earned” it through his training and the approbation of a church court (like a presbytery).
- The black velvet collar in the place of the stole is deliberately like a yoke. It is a reminder around the collar to both the minister and the congregation. It says, “You are a slave of the Word of God and not your own master.”
Christ Community Church