the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. Psalms 22:12; Psalms 22:17-18.
Jesus was robbed of His garments and nailed to the cross naked. He permitted all things to be taken from Him. He permitted His life to be taken, in order that He might give us life, the garment of innocence and of glory, and the vesture of righteousness. He who clothes all things, the flowers of the field, all the fowl in the air, and the whole earth in such varied beauty, stands stripped of all beauty, as the poorest and the most despised, as a sheep for the slaughter, in order to sacrifice Himself for His creatures. He who taught, ’If a man will take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also," has permitted Himself to be stripped perfectly naked so that there was not even a thread left upon Him which He did not sacrifice for us. Who will permit to be taken from him a single garment even of his superfluous clothing? How highly do not men value their clothes! How much vanity does not dwell inside of their clothing! How proud are they not of this borrowed beauty! How do they not despise a person who is poorly dressed! What privilege do not nice clothes give to the fool and the ungodly over the wise and the pious who are plainly attired! How many do not spend nearly their whole life thinking of their clothes! Behold, for this reason stands the Creator of all things stripped. Nevertheless, He has yet a garment left, more beautiful and more costly than any other garment that covers Him in His nakedness, which the angels admire and which we together with them will eternally worship. Light, love, humility and patience, are His garment in which He beams. But this shining raiment, however, can be seen only by eyes that God hath opened. O Lord, give us the faculty by which to see and comprehend the beauty of Thy nakedness!
Christ the Life of all the living,
Christ the death of death our foe.
Who Thyself for us once giving
To the darkest depths of woe,
Patiently didst yield Thy breath
But to save my soul from death;
Thousand, thousand thanks shall be.
Blessed Jesus unto Thee.
