Station 10 Saturday, Jun 20 2009
Jesus is stripped of His garments
We adore you O Christ and we praise you; because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.
From the Gospel according to Matthew. 27:33-36: And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull), they offered him wine to drink, mingled with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots; then they sat down and kept watch over him there.
In Jewish culture to be seen naked in public was a great humiliation. Yet here we have the person who could call down fire from heaven or 12 legions of angels to come prevent this indignity (Mat 26:53) yet he knew that his mission was not to crush those who would persecute him, but to fulfill the scriptures so that the gates of heaven would be opened for us all.
Here we have the Son of God allowing Himself to be stripped of all outward signs of his human dignity. The Evangelists describe the scene with words drawn from Psalm 22:19; by doing so they tell us the same thing that Jesus would tell his disciples on the road to Emmaus: that everything takes place “according to the Scriptures”. Nothing is mere coincidence; everything that happens is contained in the Word of God and sustained by his divine plan. The Lord passes through all the stages and steps of man’s fall from grace, yet each of these steps, for all its bitterness, becomes a step towards our redemption: this is how he carries home the lost sheep.
On the Cross Jesus stood between God and man. Stripped of all His worldly possessions. His bodily imperfections, His wounds and scars there for all to see. In that state He implores God to forgive those who would do this to Him. He serves as the great mediator. As St Paul says in 1 Timothy 2: 3-6: “This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony * at the proper time.”
This is how we stand before God. There is no covering. The creator of the universe, who sees and knows all, sees and knows our sins before we even approach him. We may try and hide behind facades, masks, or other artifices. Yet ultimately it is when we stand before God naked, stripped of all pretenses, stripped of all safeguards that the greatest healing can take place. What facades do we hide behind? What do we try to cover up hoping no one will notice? What do we need to be stripped of so that we can truly say to God, here I am Lord, do with me what you will?
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