One of the great tragedies of the past several years is that most men have stopped wearing ties. It was also a great sadness to me, after I was ordained, that to be in “uniform” I had to wear a clerical collar instead of a wonderful knit tie, or a plaid bow tie.
I am mostly joking about this, but not completely. I love ties. What I love about them, I think, is that they are often unnecessary.
So much of life is so serious that we are always hustling to be productive and optimize our time and our resources. It’s fun, then, to have an item of clothing that you wear because you like the colors.
There are some wonderful tie patterns. These include the understated English Hatter, the crisp stripes of a Repp tie (club tie), or a humble square knit tie. And don’t forget about seasonal ties. These can be the most fun. A favorite in my collection has a recurring picture of a station wagon with a Christmas tree on top that immediately evokes National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
When I see a tie, it makes me want to smile. This is because ties are often out of place and worn for the sheer joy of it. Ties remind me that not everything in life has to have a “purpose,” a rationale. Ties are testaments to delight, joy, whimsey—all things that are affirmed in Holy Scripture.
Here is what I mean: everything that exists springs out of the Word of God that brings all things into being. In the first chapters of Genesis, we see the light and darkness, water and dry land, animals and humans. But creation also includes many other strange and glorious things. Spanish moss and platypuses (platypi?), for instance. Flowers too bear witness to the glory of God. Their flashing colors and delicious scents are meant for our joy. God created sugarcane and pineapples and dragon fruit. God created the constituent elements needed to prepare French fries.
God makes all things, and this includes the pleasures and little joys of everyday life if enjoyed and ordered as God wills them: the warmth of the sun, the soft beauty of snow, the pleasures of sexuality, the taste of carefully roasted coffee. None of these things had to be, but they are part of the world as gifts to us.
When God comes to us in Jesus, he reaffirms this goodness and joy of creation. This is perhaps nowhere clearer than in our Lord’s first miracle. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ first miracle was not healing someone who was sick, raising the dead, or casting out demons. It was making a bunch of water into wine at a wedding celebration.
In John 2:1-11, Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding. The wine ran out early and Jesus’ mother asked him to do something about it. Jesus mutters something about his hour not yet having come and then gives some instructions for the servants to fill the jars with water. They follow his directions and pass the water on to the head waiter. He sips it, but instead of tasting water, he tastes very good wine. The wine is so good, in fact, that the head waiter says, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10). Jesus makes the best wine, not because he has to, but in affirmation of the goodness of the Father’s world.
This miracle is a reminder that Jesus blesses human celebration, our loves, our feasting, and our joy. To put a finer point on this, Jesus teaches us here that celebration and feasting and joy are not incidental to our lives as Christians, but they are at the very heart of it.
Here, during Easter Week, we find the risen Jesus delighting in being with his friends. Yes, he assures them of his victory, but note the context of these stories: eating, lingering on the beach, embracing them. Joy, then, is not merely something of the present Creation, as if we are leaning into some stoic and sterile eternity. Joy is part of the New Creation as well, and we’re promised an unending feast (Rev. 19:6-10).
This is Easter Joy.
But before we become lost in reverie, we should remember there is an order and intention in God’s creation. The good things that God gives us in this life—pleasure, good food, good wine—these can all be abused. They are dangerous. Instead of receiving them as gifts, we can pursue them as ends and get into all kinds of trouble along the way. Pursuing pleasure at all costs, without bounds, whether through food or drink or sex or binging television series, can do a lot of damage. It can harm our souls, our families, and our communities. I don’t mean to diminish the real danger at all. The boundaries from God are themselves, then, gifts as well.
Historically, Christians have recognized the dangers of life in God’s world and have emphasized the importance of living a disciplined and holy life. Sometimes this emphasis has become overstated. For example, a third-century Egyptian monk, St. Macarius, was so austere in his pursuit of holiness that he moved into the desert and tried to do with as little food, drink, and sleep and as possible.
One account of his life details how “if he happened upon some brothers who were eating … if there was wine, in exchange for drinking a cup, he would spend a day without drinking water. So the brothers, for the sake of refreshment, would give wine to him and the old man would joyfully accept it in order to humble himself.” It seems that any enjoyment had to be offset with penitence. This is an ancient example, but even closer to home, in North America, I am sure we’ve all heard of (or experienced) the strictures Christians have put on fun and joy: restrictions on dancing, movie theatres, playing cards, etc.
Scripture shows us a God who rejoices in his creation. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus makes celebration and joy possible. He shows us how to receive with gratitude the goodness of creation without allowing it to obscure our vision of God. And the same Jesus, risen from the grave, shows us the joy of being with another, nourished, sustained, and sated by food and relationships.
G.K. Chesterton picks up on this and points us to the attitude of humble thanksgiving. He writes in Orthodoxy that “the proper form of thanks … is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them.” To enjoy God’s gifts, we must enjoy them as they are given.
I have to admit that I am not good at this. I find a besetting temptation is to hunker down and get to work, to stay focused on the task at hand, and to screen out distractions. Joy doesn’t come easy to me. It feels like there is always too much to do, too many needs to address. But when I look at Jesus’ life and ministry, including the stories of his resurrection, I realize that making time and space for joy was essential. “For the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2). The way to the cross is paradoxically joy-filled. Even our suffering Savior made time to go to a wedding. And when he triumphs over death, he occupies himself with food and friendship again.
As we bask in the light of Easter, it is rich comfort to remember that Christians look to the future and lean into celebration with each other and God, a great and unending day when all things will be made new (Rev. 21:5).
I suspect that there were not any neckties at that the wedding in Cana. And perhaps there will not be ties at the great wedding feast of the Lamb. But who really knows? For now, though, I mourn a world with fewer ties. Easter, it seems to me, is in part a rejection of utilitarian dreariness and killjoy practicality. Therefore, I resolve to wear a tie at any chance I have.
The Rev. Dr. Cole Hartin is an associate rector of Christ Church in Tyler, Texas, where he lives with his wife and four sons.
