John 19:23-25a
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says,
“They divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.”
And that is what the soldiers did.
We’ve seen before John’s interest is connecting the details of Jesus life and, particularly, his death to the witness of the Old Testament, in this case by linking the soldiers’ division of Jesus’ clothes to the twenty-second Psalm. When reading these allusions, it’s helpful to remember that John is bolstering the confidence of a beleaguered Christian community who is likely being told again and again that they’ve bet on the wrong horse, that their Messiah is an imposter, and that they have betrayed their heritage and faith. And so John seeks to demonstrate to his flock as often as possible the continuity between Jesus’ story with Israel’s.
And there is no greater challenge to this affirmation of continuity than Jesus’ death on a cross. After all – and it’s vital for us to remember this – absolutely no one expected the cross. Indeed, the cross initially appeared to invalidate all of Jesus teaching and ministry. What, after all, can be more final than putting to death the one who claimed to bring abundant life (Jn. 10:10)?
It’s difficult for us to imagine what a profound change in attitude it demanded to see the one who was brutally executed by the Romans for treason as the agent of God’s salvation. It would be like someone coming today to say that a person put to death for murder on the electric chair was actually God’s Messiah. Impossible.
Which means that the great challenge for the earliest Christians was to look again at everything they thought they knew about God and the story of Israel and read it in light of this startling confession: that God came to redeem Israel and the world through the figure of this outcast, this one branded a criminal, and this one executed on the cross.
So when John pulls verses of the Old Testament witness into his account of Jesus’ death, it’s less a matter of trying to find hidden predictions than it is that he is seeking any and all strands of the story they may have been overlooked to help his community understand the completely unexpected event of the cross.
The cross demanded, in short, a complete rethinking of their lives, experience, practice, and tradition. And the thing is…it still demands the same today.
Dear God: When we look at the cross, invite us to reconsider what we thought we knew about love and power and be drawn into the mystery of your salvation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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