Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.

R. Because by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

When the soldiers reached Golgotha, they stripped Jesus of his clothing before nailing him to the cross. The Gospel of John records that the soldiers divided his garments among themselves and cast lots for his seamless tunic, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 22:18: "They divide my garments among them; for my clothing they cast lots." To be stripped of one's garments in the ancient world was a profound act of humiliation — it was the nakedness of slavery, of criminal punishment, of social annihilation.

Jesus, the eternal Word through whom all things were created, who clothed Adam and Eve after the Fall, who arrays the lilies of the field in splendor beyond Solomon's glory — he stands naked, exposed, stripped of the dignity that human convention attaches to clothing. In this stripping, he identifies himself with the poorest of the poor, with those whose dignity has been violated by the cruelty of others, with those who have nothing left to hide behind.

The stripping of Jesus is the consummation of the self-emptying (kenosis) that Saint Paul describes in his letter to the Philippians: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (2:7). He who was rich became poor for our sake, so that we might become rich through his poverty. In his utter destitution, he takes possession of the inheritance he came to win for us: eternal life, which no one can strip away.