Stop and really look at this moment in the life of Jesus. What strikes you? What speaks to your heart? What do you think Jesus is feeling? What does it tell you about how much He loves you? Spend some time in prayer and listen to what Jesus is inviting you into.
Meditation
Every moment of Christ’s life is salvific. He embraces everything that makes humans human, plunges Himself into our experience, and then presents the whole of His life as a sacrificial gift to the Father. Even the small, ordinary scenes – apprenticing under Joseph, celebrating a wedding, chatting beside a water well – open up the mystery of salvation.
So, in allowing Himself to be stripped naked, how is Christ accomplishing our salvation? He is, among much else, restoring our freedom to stand before God without “fig leaves,” without shame (Genesis 3:7-11).
Call to mind a time when others saw something of your body or soul that you expertly hide – an addiction, a deformity, a neediness. Recall a dream when you were under-dressed before others, only to awake nauseous with shame.
“It was not so from the beginning” (Matt 19:8). God intended our “nakedness” – the reality of who we are – to be enjoyed with the purity of a toddler running around in her diapers. Yet we lost confidence that the One who sees us is entirely trustworthy and loving. Our vulnerability therefore became a cause of nausea, not child-like freedom.
Jesus Christ undoes this shame. The God-Man does not hide His nakedness, because He always trusts in His Father. He knows that God sees beyond His lacerations, frailty, criminal reputation, and humiliation. Christ believes the Father’s blessing: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight” (Matt 3:17).
Christ, the New Adam, won the shamelessness of Eden back for us, so when grace unites our hearts to His, we rejoice in our vulnerability and in His mercy. We no longer clothe ourselves with pomp, insecurities, self-righteousness, or any false persona. We find that the clothing of heaven is sincere love cultivated through humble faith (Matt 22).
We stripped Christ to expose His fragility, to laugh at a failed messiah. This only exposed our own ugliness. God, however, does not laugh at our nakedness. Entering our shame Christ gently says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go now and sin no more.” He echoes the Father’s blessing within us: “This is my beloved child, in whom I delight.”
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