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From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit – Providence, RI
The Fifth Sunday of Lent – March 29, 2009
"His Own Clothes" (Matthew 27:31)
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

I like to preach on familiar things. Changing clothes is something we do every day. Primarily because they get dirty or wrinkled. But the Bible places a lot more significance on what people wear. Just before David wades into the “valley of Goliath,” King Saul didn’t like what he had on: "So he loaded him down with his armor: a bronze helmet and his coat of mail and his sword. But he tried in vain to go, for he was not used to them. Then David said “Thank-you-very-much,” but then took them off." Saul towered “head and shoulders” over most, and David was just a lad, swallowed by the King’s apparel. That must’ve been when they started saying: “One size fits none!” In the end, David refused the king's gracious gesture, because he felt more at ease in his own natural attire. There's something special about your own clothes. They’re tailored to fit your body. There's a right feel to it. So in the greatest crisis of his young life, David chose to wear what he had on, and use his own weapons, with which he was familiar. If he must face the giant, at least he didn’t want to be distracted by what somebody else wanted him to wear.

What Jesus had on also plays a role in his final hours. There’s a whole lotta strippin’ goin’ on! I doubt many even know about the single oddest verse in the Gospel of Mark: an anonymous streaker fled naked from the Garden of Gethsemane right after Judas’ kiss and Jesus’ arrest. Make of that what you will. (MK 14:50-51 Better known is the burlesque of the bored Roman soldiers toying with Jesus when they flogged him before Pilate’s final verdict. They stripped Jesus of his clothes and arrayed him in mock royalty. They stuck a reed in his hand and called it a scepter. They grabbed somebody’s ratty old robe and draped him like it was a regal cape.  They jammed a thorny twist of briars over his brow and called it a crown. Ah they had their fun mocking him, playing blind man’s bluff, or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, with him being the donkey; bowing down in fake adoration. But when it was finished, they put his own clothes back on him before leading him out to Skull Hill for the final stripping.

The soldiers humiliated Jesus because embarrassment is the sharpest kind of pain we can know. When others take away our dignity, there’s something uniquely cruel about being ridiculed as the target of ugly taunts. The scorn and barracks humor Pilate’s soldiers heaped upon Jesus degraded him before he was led out to be crucified. The road to Golgotha was swaddled in misery. Jesus sweat blood drops in the garden of Gethsemane, where he was summarily betrayed, denied, and abandoned by of his closest friends. Next a mock trial was held and he was made sport of. He was blindfolded and spit-on to add to the outrage. Each new assault was designed to outdo the last, in an attempt to crush his spirit. But Jesus stood tall through it all. And he never hit back or spoke a negative word in return. That is miraculous. Then he was flogged with a leather whip, studded with pieces of bone. But Jesus took it in the interest of our souls. He couldn’t save himself and save us too. God knows, we needed saving more than he did. After the scourging and sentencing -- death by crucifixion. In the midst of all the cruelty, out pops this minor detail of the passion...they changed his clothes. Finally, they flung across his shoulders an old faded military tunic, the purple cloak which was the parade uniform for Roman officers to wear through the streets of conquered cities. 

Somebody’s always trying to make Jesus be something he’s not! His family thought he was “beside himself,” and came to take him home. That’s when he said, “Who is my mother, sister, brother, my family? Those who do the will of God.” Those are my kin. In the wilderness Jesus was tempted to be something other than what he was. John the Baptist, wondered if he was wrong because Jesus wasn’t doing it right. Did he make a mistake calling him the Lamb of God, or “are you the one or should we look for somebody else?”

For centuries the church has tried to make him into so other wordly, that he's no earthly good. It’s just another subtle way to get rid of him. And sometimes it’s not so subtle. The real Jesus, who challenged the religious establishment, almost got killed preaching in his hometown, refused to bend before the might of Rome; who agonized in the garden, died courageously on the cross...this Jesus has been covered up by 2000 years of theological silks and satins, by his friends. We must be very careful about making Jesus out to be too divine, that we neglect his humanity. When a man called him “good Master,” his response was, "Why do you call me good? Only God is good." It's easy to put words in a dead man's mouth. When he was alive, he asked us to follow him. I don’t see much difference between us and the soldiers when we make him out to be something he never was.

Others have made him so this-worldly that he’s no heavenly good. Having him sponsor issues he never would’ve supported. The name of Jesus has been invoked to favor slavery, oppose abortion, push an inerrant Bible, support capitalism, keep women in the kitchen and gays in the closet. German soldiers had the name of Jesus stamped on their belt buckles when they brought the world to its knees in war. The U.S. Navy puts his name on the hull of their nuclear warships: "Corpus Christi."

We like to have Jesus supporting our causes. We need Jesus to be on our side because it adds clout. But any cause that has to invoke the Almighty for back-up is already exposed to be lacking credibility. In spite of the WWJD stuff, we don't know what Jesus would do or what he would stand for today. Above all, we want a Jesus who is like us. If we’re Baptists, Jesus should be a Baptist. If we’re Democrats, we want Jesus to head the party. If we’re conservative, we want a conservative Jesus. Whites want a white Jesus, blacks prefer a black one. If we have a stake in maintaining the status quo, the last thing we want is change. More than anything, we want a Jesus who leaves us undisturbed.

This is the season of Lent, a time for focusing on the crucifixion. But the cross wasn’t insurmountable for Jesus. In John's Gospel, he even looked forward to it. He’s like “Let’s get this over with!” One and done. Jesus took all that abuse in stride. But there’s way more to Jesus than what we did to him. He made of the cross, the most magnificent spiritual victory in all history! And even prayed for his enemies on dying day. But what’s well-nigh spoiled everything Jesus advocated and stood for since the time of Constantine, is the way the world has tried to make him out to be something he never was. “In this sign, conquer!”

Sometimes I wonder in all the hours I’ve spent hanging out around churches: What kind of fake crowns have we jammed over Jesus' head? How many phony robes have we wrapped around our Lord? We all do it. But there it is in bold relief: All the trimmings of royalty, but without its power. Armed with only the love of God! He had all power, but he used it to love somebody. His power wins by losing; it overcomes evil with good; and loves one's enemies and prays for those who despitefully use it. That's the only power Jesus was interested in. He had 10,000 angels at his disposal but needed none. Jesus had all these gestures of homage, but without the reality. This is when allegiance turns to burlesque. Down through the centuries, continuing to this very moment, there’s been many a lampoon of Jesus ... beating the Roman soldiers at their own game.

On our trip to Israel last year, our group visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of my least favorite spots. It just seems so foreign to everything I know about Jesus. Originally built by Helena in the fourth century, but most of what we see today is the work of the Crusaders, who built the great cathedral in the twelfth century. The domed basilica is a collection of chapels clustered around the rock of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. One of them had a strange name: "The Chapel of Derision." It reminded me of the line in “All Hail the Power,” "Bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all!"

So after the soldiers had their fun with their “royal diadems,” there was another change of clothes. The military took their sport where they could find it. On this day, it was Jesus. But as they wearied of their ugly game, they took the purple robe off of Jesus and "put his own clothes" back on him. Perhaps the kindest thing that happened to Jesus in the whole Passion narrative. If he must die, then let him die in his own clothes. Crucify him in his own clothes, soaked in blood and sweat, but at least it was his blood and sweat. Like David, neither would Jesus do battle with the giant in Saul’s armor. Tattered and torn, but in his own clothes, he bore the cross up Calvary’s hill. In his own clothes he died, so that we might live in ours.

But it isn’t over yet. The Bible tells in the last book, about one final change of clothing for Jesus. Those too will be his. But this time he's wearing all white! No need for a “chapel of derision” this time. No longer attired in the purple military threads or even the bloody garments of Mt. Calvary. The Book says there will come a time when, "Every eye shall see him, and every knee shall bow!"

This time around, Jesus is the Christ, who comes to us from the right hand of God the Father in glory; the absolute victor over evil and death, the cross and the grave. One day"Every eye is gonna see him," in his own clothes. The blood washed out, white as snow; shining like the sun now. And then the question will be for you and me the same as it is now: Did I do my best?

Pastoral Prayer: (3/29/09)
Loving God, in whom the heart’s deepest fears are assuaged and the furrowed brow soothed, hear our prayers for all whose darkest night still lies before them. No more than Christ are we exempt from deep distress; no less than he are we granted the delight of Thy presence. When the darkness yields to the morning light, hold tenderly in your arms all who are weary or discouraged, until strength spent, we become vacuous vessels of Thy Spirit. Restore us as surely as Christ rose from the tomb into the light on Easter morn.

We confess how quickly we rally around those whose fervent prayer is “Give me success;” but how soon we desert the suffering whose prayer is “Not my will but thine be done.” Our discipleship is frequently undermined by fickle fervor and devious desires. Have mercy on all of us fair-weather followers of Christ. Lent is a time for asking tough questions: at what point does our insistence on the superiority of Christianity make us less Christian? Do we come to worship a God with power to transform us, or is it because we like feeling better about the way we are?

Show us O God, that there’s more to worship than just showing up. Good religion is not about possessing God, but God possessing us. Forgive us for preferring our own system for getting hold of God, to a God that’s way beyond our grasp. Enable us to be less condemning of others for conceiving God in a different way. Teach us what it means to die to self, that the unfathomable purposes of God may break through in some unforeseeable daybreak. Remembering Thy suffering and with the confident trust in the hope of the third day, we pray the prayer given to the disciples of all generations...Our Father...