Jesus' Seamless Garment

On this precious Lord’s Day Sunday in the month which marks our New Academic Year and New Church Year Calendar, we pause to recognize these most crucial, important and absolutely spell-binding facts, most worthy of remembering.

We have spoken of being in a month of new learning, both related to Church and Academia. It has dawned upon me that although all the other eleven months of any given year are free to have new changes and new teachings in and of the colourful and fluid life of the Church, this one month holds singular and unique placing on the calendar, as the New Church Year, a title not shared.

There’s no sharing with part of another week or another month. September is a month that is completely whole, in the title it wears and remains that way regardless. This uniqueness and wholeness in terms of not being shared, is like the whole robe which Jesus wore. We are given this precious information in John 19: 23 – 24a. When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. Let’s not tear it, they said to one another, let’s decide by lot who will get it.

Will you receive this given week, of the month which wears an unshared title or name, however much of it we are given, as whole, without seam and entire, from start to finish? Will you do so mindfully recognizing these most crucial, important and absolutely worthy of remembering facts? Note, in the order of things, we come in faith, mindful of His grace to be able to learn and receive from our Lord, whose promise to teach us and lead us into all truth is whole and unbroken, even in the hands of enemies. We come most mindful that we are being brought to feed on God’s Living and Active Word, without seam – no break or crack – so that there is no thought or threat of weakness in any part. We dare to trust implicitly, His seamless Word in our unworthy hands, so that His Worthy Hands will do His Works in His Way as we remain humbled and totally obedient.

Fully aware, we come, totally in awe of You - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - giving all praise and thanks to You for Your unsearchable ways. Your ways are perfect and right and just.

Will you also take this week as dear, personal, close to you? The fact is that just as this particular garment of Jesus was His under-garment, we are totally humbled and made most convincingly low, when we ponder on the image of undergarment. Two powerful images come to mind. One image is that it is a garment that is worn under something. It gives the understanding of that which is not public or visible, but what is always present, yet unseen. The other image conveys the understanding that this is a private and personal garment. It is underneath another garment, one which surely contains seams. It is kept free from elements for example, of dust and dirt, which will blow upon the outer garment.

Fully aware, we come, totally in obeisance to You - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - giving all respect and homage to You for Your unsearchable ways. Your ways are perfect and right and just.

Finally, this fact is also advanced. The picture before us is of something so special and mysteriously sacred that even the soldiers, who seemed to have had no kind of heart and passion for Jesus, miraculously saw something divinely sacred about the seamlessness and wholeness of Jesus’ worn under-garment, or inner-garment, as it is sometimes called. They all, with one heart and mind, agreed not to strip it, cut it, or divide it up in quarters to give each of them an equal share. No! It remained whole, with the clear and perfect understanding that only one of them could have it all – no sharing. The fact is that my faith allows me the perfect freedom to see our Holy Spirit at work even when it came to the clothes of Jesus. What about you and your fact of faith? When I look at soldiers, who had no qualms whatsoever in crucifying Jesus and absolutely no scruples at all in equally dividing up the dead Jesus’ clothes as their spoils, so to speak, respect the whole robe, this could only be the Right Hand of God, stopping them from rending or ripping that seamless robe, that whole undergarment.

Fully aware, we come, totally in reverence to You - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - giving all honour and glory to You for Your unmatched ways. Your ways are perfect and right and just.

This most powerful and one of a kind week has been introduced to you in the same way it was brought before me. We are offered new redemptive hope, new repentance action and new revival times, in Spirit and in Truth, under the Right Hand of God.