John Bortulin wrote that Jesus went “from borrowed donkey to borrowed upper room to borrowed cross and borrowed tomb.” That is a nice bit of doggerel but it hit me particularly hard. It has to do with the fact that the one thing Jesus owned was a seamless tunic that the soldiers gambled for at his crucifixion. One thing he owned and that was taken. The cattle on a thousand hills are his and he created all things and yet in this life the one thing that was his is gambled over.
Maybe there is a strange part of my brain that finds obscure meaning in something like this. The whole Passion story is sad and pathetic in the real meaning of that word, but this stricks me as particularly meaningful in terms of my robe of righteousness purchased with his blood. I get gifts, he gets rejected and murdered. As my High Priest Jesus Jesus wears the high Priest garb. It is his by right and it is taken from him.
Among the articles of clothing stipulated by God for the High Priest was the skillfully woven “tunic of fine linen thread” (Exodus 28:39). According to Josephus, this clothing item was seamless:”Now this vesture was not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders and the sides, but it was one long vestment so woven as to have an aperture for the neck; not an oblique one, but parted all along the breast and the back.”
