Music. Movies. The Way of the Cross. Week 4

Jesus is Stripped of His Garments

...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.’ John 19:23-24 (NRSV)

How has it come to this? That the first born of creation, the image of the unseen God, the King of kings has been stripped, degraded...his personhood stolen and his tunic gambled for? What are we to glean from this tragedy? Certainly, there are many who have lost their identities, stripped of more than their clothes. The homeless, the aged and infirm, and those with terminal illness.

Still Alice is a powerful movie. It earned Julianne Moore an Oscar for best actress. Early onset Alzheimer’s is stealing herself from herself, it is rendering her dependent and unable to control even the most basic human functions. It was apparent to those of us who watched this clip that much was being stripped from Alice as this trying illness took its toll. This scene makes clear that her memory and dignity are fading.

In 2003 Sister Angela Hibbard, a Benedictine nun, wrote a small pamphlet, Dying with Jesus: Meditations for Those Who are Terminally Ill, Their Families and Their Caregivers. Here is the reflection she offers for this bit of scripture...

Meditation: I’m beginning to understand what it feels like to be stripped naked. Not only is my body exposed like a child’s sometimes, but all kinds of personal business is now being taken care of by other people. Some days I feel like I’m losing my mentality too. I say and do things that aren’t me. My memory, my awareness, my energy, my dignity are all slipping away like sand. Can you hide me from prying eyes?

Jesus Speaks: Beloved, remember that nothing about you has ever been hidden from me - your sins, your private thoughts, the things you preferred to do in the darkness are all clear before me. Do not be afraid of this stripping. It is bringing you down to your essential core. Little by little it is making you aware that for your very existence you depend on me.

Who else is stripped? What about Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, a middleweight boxer who was wrongfully convicted of murder and later released following a petition of habeas corpus after spending almost 20 years in prison. Wrongfully convicted! 20 years! Here’s Bob Dylan’s version of the story of Rubin’s stripping, poetic license and all.

Over the course of this class, I have been surprised at the ways contemporary issues have crept into our discussions. I walked away from Wednesday’s class reflecting on the day’s events, especially the National School Walkout. Aren’t some of our most prominent hashtags responses to folks having things stripped from them? #blacklivesmatter…#metoo…#enoughisenough...

Wrapped up in each of these movements is the notion that someone has been marginalized, looked at as less than, abused, taken advantage of, been made sacred...these movements are the response of persons whose sense of safety and well being has been stripped from them.

Jesus bore our suffering. The stripped body of Jesus reveals to us the immense degradation that human beings suffer all through the world, at all places and in all times. Often, I think of life as a journey to the mountaintop where I will see at last the full beauty of my surroundings and where I will experience myself in full possession of all my senses. But Jesus points in the other direction. Life is an increasing call to let go of desires, of success and accomplishment, to give up the need to be in control, to die to the illusion of greatness. The joy and peace that Jesus offers is hidden in the descending way of the cross. There lie hope, victory, and new life, but they are given to us where we are losing all. “Those who lose their life will gain it.” Luke 9:24 - Henry Nouwen

I wonder if God is present to those who are 'stripped'? That was the final question for our Wednesday evening reflection. I think that Nouwen offers a good response. Jesus bares our suffering. This is not an absent God who sits on a throne, on a cloud, watching from afar... but a God who was willing to humble himself into a manger and experience humiliation at the hands of his oppressors. This is a God who is with us.

Until next week,

The Reverend Jesse Lebus