Mordecai-like, the King has taken us into His palace and dressed us with robes of royalty.
I’ve left discussing purple to last, even though it always appears in the middle, as in “curtains of fine woven linen and blue, purple, and scarlet thread” (Ex 26:1). Of course, the colors are that way on a color wheel. Blue and red are primary colors, along with yellow. Although there was no yellow, per se, in the tabernacle, there was plenty of gold! But when you mix blue and scarlet, you end up with purple. Not that the craftspeople mixed their dyes. The purple dye they used came from a sea snail called murex trunculus. Supposedly, each snail produced a single drop, so for one pound of dye it took about four million mollusks! Any wonder that it was reserved for royalty and the wealthy? It was the most expensive color in ancient times. You find many references to purple linked with power and prestige throughout Scripture. Mordecai wore “a garment of fine linen and purple” (Est 8:15) when he was honored for mediating his people’s rescue. Of the virtuous woman we read, “her clothing is fine linen and purple” (Prov 31:22). And Belshazzar promised that anyone who could interpret the writing on the wall “shall be clothed with purple” (Dan 5:7). Mark and John saw the robe Jesus wore as more purple than scarlet, and anyone who has mixed reds, blues, and purples knows the challenge. But what if you blended the heroic humanity of Jesus and the true blue of His heavenly origins? Wouldn’t you get the rich purple of the rightful King, the “one Mediator between God and men” (1 Tim 2:5)? “Looking unto Jesus,…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,…and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2). Heaven’s Son; humanity’s Savior; our Sovereign. Hallelujah!