On Good Friday I will be leading a Good Friday Meditation at one of my churches called Elements of the Passion. During the meditation I will be taking seven elements that are present in the Passion story and exploring them in turn. (I'm not a scientist so I'm sure that some of my seven are not strictly elements so please humour me!)
I thought that I would share them with you here over the next seven days so here's the third which is on cloth.
The Soldiers Divide Jesus’ Clothes
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they
took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They
also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the
top. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to
see who will get it.” This was to fulfil what the scripture says,
“They
divided my clothes among themselves,
And
for my clothing they cast lots.”
And this is what the
soldiers did. (John 19:23-25)
Mark Twain once famously said that:
“Clothes make the man. Naked people
have little or no influence on society.”
How wrong you can be.
Like all of us Jesus came into the world naked and his mother wrapped him in
swaddling cloth. Jesus never worried about what clothes he wore and he told
others to do the same. Luke’s gospel records Jesus as saying to his disciples;
“Therefore I tell
you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what
you will wear. For life is
more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor
spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of
these. But if God so
clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown
into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!”
Jesus knew that clothes
were not worth worrying about. When he sent his disciples out in pairs he told
them not to take two tunics with them because he knew that they only really
needed one.
But some people did
worry about clothes because they thought that clothes made a statement about
who someone was. We are told that the rich man at whose gate poor Lazarus sat
was dressed in purple and fine linen. Purple clothes were the sign of power and
wealth. Jesus warned people against the
scribes who liked to walk around in long robes.
And when Jesus visits
the country of the Gerasenes and is confronted by a man possessed by a demon
one of the signs of that man’s demon possession is the fact that he has worn no
clothes for a long time. And when Jesus has cast the demons out the man sits at
Jesus’ feet fully clothed.
But on one occasion
Jesus’ clothes had said something about who he was. At the transfiguration
Jesus’ clothes had become dazzling white as he was revealed in all his glory to
Peter, James and John.
And clothes have an
important part to play in the passion story. On Palm Sunday we remembered how
the people laid their cloaks down on the road in front of Jesus as he came into
Jerusalem as a sign of welcome. But on Good Friday there was no-one there who
was willing to offer their clothes to cover Jesus’ nakedness.
And clothing had been
used ironically on that terrible day. The soldiers had stripped Jesus and then
dressed him in purple robes as befitting a king or an emperor and then mocked
him.
And
now this final humiliation. The soldiers take Jesus’ clothes and divide them
amongst themselves even casting lots for his tunic. Jesus’ humiliation is
complete. The story has come full circle. Jesus came into the world naked and
now he is about to leave it naked.
And as we reflect on the naked Christ
hanging there on the cross we should perhaps reflect on the fact that this is
the fate that awaits all of us. At some point we will all stand naked before
the Lord, our earthly pretensions stripped away. And when that time comes we
will be able to stand there with confidence because of what that naked man on a
cross in Jerusalem did for us.
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