Woven from the top
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece (John 19:23).
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:50-51).
I remember my wife, June, knitting a beautiful circular shawl as a present for our first grandchild, Naomi. What made it most remarkable was that it had no seam. It was knitted on a circular needle from the top to the bottom.
Interestingly, the clothes of the Lord Jesus are mentioned at the beginning and end of His life. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger at His birth. This description gives us a sense of how the Eternal Son of God confined Himself within a tiny body to become our Saviour. The angels remind us of the heights from which He came and the lowliness of the manger.
John recalls the cruel indifference of the soldiers at Calvary. They shared, then drew lots for all that the Lord owned in this world – His clothes. They could, in pity, have given these to Mary, who was standing by. But, no: they took everything. John reminds us that the tunic was woven from the top to the bottom. In Mark 5:27 the woman stretched out her hand in faith to touch the Lord’s garment and to be healed. These two incidents are vivid reminders of the Lord’s perfect seamless life of grace in this world: Who he was, woven from the top; a life sacrificed in love, woven to the bottom. These were the clothes the Lord of Glory wore as He expressed the heart of God to this world.
Matthew records the Lord’s death in all its horror and pain. He also records what happened in the temple when Jesus gave His life. The veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The Lord Jesus gave Himself, and God acted from heaven by tearing in two the temple curtain, exposing the Most Holy Place. We read in Hebrews 10:19-20: “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body” (NIV). The immediacy with which God responds to the death of His Son is compelling.
John writes of the empty tomb, the clothes lying, and the handkerchief folded – the work finished (John 20:5-8). John was there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and heard Him tell Lazarus’ friends to free him from his grave clothes. The Lord Jesus needed no one to loose and set Him free; He is the resurrection and the life. He is also the Good Shepherd, who had the power to lay down His life and the power to take it again in resurrection. And John, before ever seeing His resurrected Lord, believed.
At the Lord’s birth in Bethlehem, nothing was given to Him. At Calvary, everything was taken from Him. But Calvary isn’t the story of what men took away: it is the story of what the Lord Jesus gave. We should never tire of tracing that journey of love and rejoicing in His glorious resurrection and how He was taken up in glory into heaven. He said to Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). We never saw Jesus walk in grace through this world, but we “know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). It touches the heart of the Saviour that we remember His love and worship Him.
