By: Sam Chan
This year denim jeans celebrate their 150th birthday.
We’ve been wearing denim for over 100 years.
But originally denim was for poor workers, immigrants, and slaves. People who work with their hands. Not for high-class elites.
So why do we love denim?
I reckon it’s because denim glorifies the God of the bible.
God is a working-class God. God got his hands dirty to create us. Jesus also got his hands dirty to heal a blind man. That’s why the bible highly values what it calls “work with your hands”.
Denim also glorifies Jesus who saves us.
Jesus was an immigrant – leaving his world into ours. He became a servant and died a slave’s death on the cross.
And then Jesus calls on us to serve and give up our lives in the same way he did for us.
Behind the fabric of this universe is a God who champions the weak, poor, and oppressed.
That’s why the fabric of this universe is denim.
Genesis 2:4-9
1 Samuel 2:8
John 9:6
1 Thessalonians 4:11
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 10:41-45