(Today’s audio reading on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6A1oM4S2NT3Zwf3DsZja7M)
And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. (Luke 23:34)
The cross was the stripping away of all human dignity. It all added up: the mocking, the beating, the crown of thorns and the purple robe, the spitting, and the derision of all the taunts which went like this: “if you are…then why don’t you….”. To add to this disgusting scene, underneath the cross, they gambled for his clothes. This was their play thing. Their amusement. No doubt they led sad lives; was this the regular crucifixion team, by the way? I wonder if they did this as their main job. (How many people were crucified day in and day out?) They turned it into sport, trying in some odd sort of way to counter-balance their awareness of the brutal pain and emotional upheaval of those who were being tortured.
So, I assume he was naked on the cross? That’s not mentioned anywhere explicitly, that he was hanging there naked, but he must have been? The Scripture says they took away his clothes…that sounds naked. That was another blow to dignity, perched without a stitch before anyone who would look. Needless to say, but he wasn’t getting his clothes back, or suddenly getting covered up. They were stripped off and gambled away.
All of these pieces of dignity-removal keep adding up, but I’m struck by where Luke places this event of the gambling. He places it right after these words: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Within the envelope of dignity-removal, he was still thinking of others, and asking the Father for His help towards them.
The soldiers obvioulsy didn’t know (or care?) that Jesus was the Eternal Son of God. The winner of the gambling game obviously thought he had just walked off with the grand prize: the bloody, sweaty, torn cloth of what he thought was yet another common criminal. When he was walking home did he throw it off to the side of the road somewhere or discard it in a dumpster by his house?
Whatever the gambling winner did with the clothes of Jesus is lost in history. I’ve wondered what they would be worth if the soldier had passed them down to his children, and then throughout succeeding generations, eventually picked up by an astute relative who actually understood and believed who Jesus was. Just imagine what that would bring on the international auction block! “What am I bid for the authenticated clothes of Jesus of Nazareth, won in a gamble just beneath his crucifixion sticks?!”
But of course there’s nothing like that taking place in history. His personal effects and possessions have never been found—and not that we would expect them to be found after more than 20 centuries. His exit from earth was not enhanced by material things left behind: we know of Him building no buildings, writing no books, establishing any schools. But He did leave behind followers. And that contingent of followers continues to grow world-wide, day after day.
“Father, may we share with Jesus the initiative to forgive someone for whom it may be hard for us to forgive—even those who attack our dignity, especially in a public place.”
Freddy Boswell 