The Clothes Don't Make the Man

Welcome to our conversation with God! I love listening to his word and letting him speak into my life and reshape my heart. Let's follow Jesus a little further into his hours on the cross. Read with me John 19:23-24. Just two verses.

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. . . . they said to one another, "Let's decide by lot who will get it." (v. 24)

Is it just me, or is this a wierd scene? I mean, who fights over somebody else's used undergarments? But there is a stark irony here. Jesus is hanging there dying to satisfy God’s sense of justice for all the sins and evils that we’ve all committed. He’s there offering eternal life and hope and meaning and purpose and ultimate healing to a broken world. This is the pivotal moment of human history. And here are these guys. They remind me of the two British guards in the Pirates of the Carribean movies that were always comedically standing their post missing everything important that was happening around them.

These four Roman soldiers are standing there up close to Jesus, right at the foot of his cross. They could literally reach out and touch him. And what are they doing? They’re fighting over his dirty, used clothes! Okay, it would be kind of cool to have a piece of clothing Jesus’ wore. But what were they thinking?

They remind me of a lot of people around today--people so focused on Jesus’ “clothing” that they essentially overlook the essence of the man himself. It’s so easy to focus on the wrong things, the religious arguments, the externals and incidentals, and become a disciple who scarcely resembles his Teacher. We can fight over Jesus' clothes and miss the essence of his life and mission. These men focused on Jesus’ clothing laying there on the ground, and their eyes never really turned upward to take in the Man himself hanging there for them, for everyone.

I turned my eyes up to Jesus as a pre-teen. I just wanted to love him and trust him and learn to be like him. And then after I was baptized, voices in my life started pointing me to his clothing. It was almost like they were saying, “Look, it’s not really Jesus that you need to know. It’s his clothing that’s really important.” They introduced me to the fight going on at the foot of the cross for Jesus’ robe. And they started equipping me with all these arguments so that I could jump into the fray and be on the side that comes away with the robe.

It wasn’t until years later that I rediscovered Jesus, the Man himself, and turned my eyes back on the One hanging on the cross for me and for the world, the one who humbly loved and healed and courageously challenged the broken systems of this world, who called his followers to be one as they simply followed him.

Just this past week I listened to a pastor speak to a group of other pastors, and he strongly asserted that he would "die" defending his position on the details of Christ's return. He wouldn't let anyone be a member of his church that didn't hold the same position. I couldn't help but think, "Really? Does Jesus really want you to die for that? Maybe he wants you to die defending the cause of the helpless. Maybe he wants you to die fighting off the modern day Pharisees who still pile up legalistic burdens on the backs of everyday people who just want to know God. Maybe he would have you die proclaiming his Lordship in a closed, Muslim country. But does he really want you to go to your death scrapping with other believers over the details of his second coming?"

The clothes don't make the man. I'll let others fight over his clothes. All I want is Jesus.