High Priest

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

HIGH PRIEST

John 19:23-24

23 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. 24 "Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it." This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said, "They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." So this is what the soldiers did.

NIV

The psalmist wrote these words regarding the dividing of and casting lots for his clothing over one thousand years before this actually happened. Once again we see the all-knowing God at work. When he inspired David to pen those words he knew this event before it occurred, at least in the time frame of human understanding. The interesting point here is this undergarment of Jesus. It was without seams and this is the very type of garment the high priest would wear. There is the life application for us here in the sense that it certainly signified Jesus is in fact our high priest. In this part of the account of John, Jesus is on the cross, nailed to the wood, for our sin. A scene too unbearable to watch is upon us, and at least John saves us from seeing it by not giving us a full in detail account of this event. But nevertheless we know what it was about, and the horrible pain that was inflicted upon Jesus all because of our sin. This action by God demonstrates just how much he loves us. To allow this  type of suffering pain to happen to Jesus, this horrific humiliation of hanging on a cross as a common criminal only shows us his unwavering love. Yes it is true that Jesus is God and that he knew he would go through this event and come back from the dead, and go back to heaven glorified, living for all eternity, but he was in this state also fully man, experiencing all the pain, all the suffering, the hurt, the humiliation put upon him by the Roman soldiers as well as the rejection of the very people he had chosen as his very own. We cannot imagine this type of pain. There have been movies which have attempted to duplicate this scene, but they have only been from the imagination of men as we cannot truly know the complete horror and compassion of this scene. The whole of our salvation is right here, the completeness of our redemption is here. Our opportunity to be returned to our rightful place with the Father is in this moment when Jesus hangs upon this cross. This is the time he takes all our sin upon himself, an action we cannot fully understand, for it is a supernatural happening. The feeling he must have felt, being sinless, to experience all our sin at once within him must have been enormously painful, yet he did it because he loves us. He is our high priest.