Remember the impeachment cases that have taken place in our country, the Philippines, around the beginning of the century and right after the close of the first decade? What do you think did these people and their family, friends, supporters and other loved ones feel before, during and after the proceedings?
To be stripped of power, influence, and position is almost equivalent of being stripped of honor, dignity and reputation. Even convicted criminals feel the agony of being denied their freedom upon being sentenced to imprisonment, how much more if the person being stripped of is an innocent one?
Jesus being stripped of His garments symbolizes the humiliation of the human race being exposed for its sins against God. This innocent man represented the sinful humanity. Jesus acknowledged the ignorance of humanity when He cried to the Father, "Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!" [Luke 23:34]. Humanity was ignorant because it should have KNOWN and yet it did not exert effort to really know. But there are those who claim to have knowledge and to them the Lord said, "YOU ARE GUILTY" [see John 9:41].
Jesus being stripped of His garments symbolizes the humiliation of the human race being exposed for its sins against God. This innocent man represented the sinful humanity. Jesus acknowledged the ignorance of humanity when He cried to the Father, "Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!" [Luke 23:34]. Humanity was ignorant because it should have KNOWN and yet it did not exert effort to really know. But there are those who claim to have knowledge and to them the Lord said, "YOU ARE GUILTY" [see John 9:41].
But we cannot stay ignorant. The Lord has already come in order to make us understand and be spared from ignorance and eventually from damnation [see John 15:22]. Our ignorance has already been exposed and our sins brought into the light because we have been stripped of our garments. We tried to hide behind many clothes to cover our nakedness for we are ashamed of how we look like when bare, when we have nothing to cover us.
These coverings, the garments that we use to hide our sinfulness, are many and diverse. They range from personal to institutional, from individual to communal, and from cultural to legal, etc. We do not project our true self for the self is weak, incapable, and powerless so we hide behind the strength, the capability, and the influence of the earthly things that provide them for that which God and His Church provide run counter to what our sinful nature demands. Since God and the Church won't give in to the lusts of humanity so humanity hides behind its self-created image which denies God and disregards His Church.
But such coverings will never forever hide humanity. Because God made man has already exposed humanity's nakedness, humanity doesn't have any more recourse than to surrender to the all powerful God and commit to His continuing saving act through the Church that He has established on earth. For no one can hide from God; to God everything is bare and fully exposed.
Let us strip ourselves of all that is not us. Let us be pure, simple and true for God does not ask of us for any garment but the garment of innocence and holiness [see The Parable of the Wedding Banquet, Matthew 22: 1-14]. We can only have this holy garment after washing ourselves from the dirt of sin through the blood of the Lamb [see Revelation 7:14; 22:14].
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