When the soldiers crucified Jesus,
they took his clothes.
—John 19:23
In her biography, The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom recounted the humiliation of being forced to take off all their clothes and file past grinning guards at Ravensbruck, the notorious women’s extermination camp.
During one of those demeaning drills, Corrie remembered that Jesus had hung naked on the cross. She whispered to her sister, “Betsie, they took His clothes too.”
Most public speakers have had a recurring dream of standing before an audience naked—an unnerving, humiliating, terrifying dream.
With Jesus, it wasn’t a dream, but a disgraceful reality. Portraits of Christ’s crucifixion commonly picture him wearing a loincloth—an evasive, but appropriate, reluctance of the artist.
But when we come to the Lord’s Table, it is relevant for us to contemplate not only the physical pain he endured but also the appalling humiliation.
For us, he suffered
both pain and shame.