Stripped of His garments

There is a scene in Shakespeare’s King Lear which, although a very small thing in itself, has enormous significance. It occurs in the storm scene, the climax of the play. The old king, having lost his kingdom and all he had including his home, and driven out of doors, in a storm, is given shelter in a hovel. There he strips himself of his clothes and presents his naked body to the cold rain. "Off with these lendings," he says. Clothes are mere "lendings" – borrowed things not part of the body. And yet, thus naked, Lear retains his dignity as a man and as a king. When someone asks, "Is that the King?" he answers, "Aye, every inch a king."

It is that scene that I think of when I read in the narrative of the Passion that Jesus was stripped of his clothes. He had been scourged, crowned with thorns, humiliated before Pilate and Herod. And now, before being nailed to the cross, he is made to undergo the last and worst indignity of all, to be stripped of his clothes and exposed naked to the multitude.

And yet what was said of Lear could be said of Jesus: "Aye, every inch a king."

Man seeks to dignify himself by what he has: His house, his car, his clothes, his money in the bank. What if he is stripped of all that and is exposed naked?

Jesus, stripped of his clothes and nailed to the cross in complete nakedness, is left with nothing but his immense, his enormous, his infinite dignity. Because dignity resides not in what we have but in what we are.

The penitent thief recognized that dignity. He said to the naked crucified Jesus, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus immediately replied. He will not only remember the penitent thief when he comes into his kingdom, he will give him the kingdom itself: "Amen, I say to you, this day you shall be with me in paradise."

And after Jesus’s death, the pagan centurion recognized his divine dignity: "Truly, this is the Son of God."